BERKELEY 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE 


BY 

EDGAR  SALTUS 


CHICAGO: 

rloRRILLHlGGINS  ^  Go. 
1892. 


AMS  PRESS 
NEW  YORK 


Reprinted  from  the  1892  edition 

First  AMS  EDITION  published  1968 

Manufactured  in  the  United  States  of  America 


AMS  PRESS,  INC. 

New  York,  N.Y.  10003 


A 

M.  EDWIN  ALBERT  SCHROEDER 

Socrpte     avait     I'aimable     habitude     de    ne    refuser 

jamais  les  dons  de  ses  amis,  quel  que  fiit  leur  peu  de 

valeur.     Toi,  qui  resembles  tant  au  vieux  sage,  tu  ne 

refuseras  pas,  je   I'espere,  la   petite   flanerie  a  travers 

les  ages  et  les  dieux  que  ma  paresse  ofifre   maintenant 

a  ton  amitie. 

Edgar  Evertson-Saltus 


Paris: 

/  novenibre,  iSgi. 


CONTENTS. 


That  Woman. 

II, 
Conjectural  Rome. 

III. 

Fabulous  Fields. 

IV 
The  Pursuit  of  the  Impossible. 

V. 

Nero. 

VI. 
The  House  of  Flavia. 

VII. 
The  Poison  in  the  Purple. 

VIII. 
Faustine. 

IX. 
The  Agony. 


I. 

THAT    WOMAN 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 


I. 


THAT    WOMAN. 


When  the  murder  was  done  and  the 
heralds  shouted  through  the  thick 
streets  that  Caesar  had  passed  into 
obHvion,  it  was  the  passing  of  the 
repubHc  they  announced,  the  founda- 
tion of  Imperial  Rome. 

There  was  a  hush,  then  a  riot  which 
frightened  a  senate  that  frightened 
the  world.  For  Caesar  was  adored. 
A  man  who  could  give  millions  away 
and  sup  on  dry  bread  was  apt  to  con- 
quer, not  provinces  alone,  but  hearts. 
Besides,  he  had  begun  well  and  his 
people   had    done   their   best.       The 


12  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

House  of  Julia,  to  which  he  belonged, 
descended,  he  declared,  from  Venus. 
The  ancestry  was  less  legendary  than 
typical.  Cinna  drafted  a  law  giving 
him  the  right  to  marry  as  often  as  he 
chose.  His  mistresses  were  queens. 
After  the  episodes  in  Gaul,  when  he 
entered  Rome  his  legions  warned  the 
citizens  to  have  an  eye  on  their  wives. 
At  seventeen  he  fascinated  pirates. 
A  shipload  of  the  latter  had  caught 
him  and  demanded  twenty  talents 
ransom.  "  Too  little,"  said  the  lad; 
"I  will  give  you  fifty,  and  empale  you 
too,"  which  he  did,  jesting  with  them 
meanwhile,  reciting  verses  of  his  own 
composition,  calling  them  barbarians 
when  they  did  not  applaud,  ordering 
them  to  be  quiet  when  he  wished  to 
sleep,  captivating  them  by  the  effront- 
ery of  his  assurance,  and,  the  ransom 
paid,  slaughtering  them  as  he  had 
promised. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  13 

Tall,  slender,  not  handsome,  but 
superb  and  therewith  so  perfectly 
sent  out,  so  well  groomed,  that  Cicero 
mistook  him  for  a  fop  from  whom  the 
republic  had  nothing  to  fear;  splen- 
didly lavish,  exquisitely  gracious,  he 
was  born  to  charm  and  his  charm 
was  such  that  it  still  subsists.  Cato 
alone  was  unenthralled.  But  Cato 
was  never  pleased;  he  laughed  but 
once,  and  all  Rome  turned  out  to  see 
him;  he  belonged  to  an  earlier  day, 
to  an  austerer,  perhaps  to  a  better 
one,  and  it  may  be  that  in  "that 
woman,"  as  he  called  Caesar,  his 
clearer  vision  discerned  beneath  the 
plumage  of  the  peacock,  the  beak  and 
talons  of  the  bird  of  prey.  For  they 
were  there,  and  needed  only  a  vote  of 
the  senate  to  batten  on  nations  of 
which  the  senate  had  never  heard. 
Loan  him  an  army,  and  "that  woman" 
was  to  give  geography  such  a  twist 


14  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

that  to-day  whoso  says  Caesar  says 
history. 

Was  it  this  that  Cato  saw,  or  may 
it  be  that  one  of  the  oracles  which  had 
not  ceased  to  speak  had  told  him  of 
that  coming  night  when  he  was  to 
take  his  own  Hfe,  fearful  lest  "that 
woman"  should  overwhelm  him  with 
the  magnificence  of  his  forgiveness? 
Cato  walks  through  history,  as  he 
walked  through  the  Forum,  bare  of 
foot — too  severe  to  be  simple,  too  ob- 
stinate to  be  generous — the  image  of 
Ancient  Rome. 

In  Caesar  there  was  nothing  of  this. 
He  was  wholly  modern;  dissolute 
enough  for  any  epoch,  but  possessed 
of  virtues  that  his  contemporaries 
could  not  spell.  A  slave  tried  to  poison 
him.  Suetonius  says  he  merely  put 
the  slave  to  death.  The  "merely'^  is 
to  the  point.  Cato  would  have  tortured 
him  first.    After  Pharsalus  he  forgave 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  15 

everyone.  When  severe,  it  was  to  him- 
self. It  is  true  he  turned  over  two  mil- 
lion people  into  so  many  dead  flies,  their 
legs  in  the  air,  creating,  as  Tacitus 
has  it,  a  solitude  which  he  described 
as  Peace;  but  what  antitheses  may 
not  be  expected  in  a  man  who,  before 
the  first  century  was  begun,  divined 
the  fifth,  and  who  in  the  Suevians — 
that  terrible  people  beside  whom  no 
nation  could  live — foresaw  Attila! 

Save  in  battle  his  health  was  poor. 
He  was  epileptic,  his  strength  under- 
mined by  incessant  debauches ;  yet  let 
a  nation  fancying  him  months  away 
put  on  insurgent  airs,  and  on  that  na- 
tion he  descended  as  the  thunder  does. 
In  his  campaigns  time  and  again  he 
overtook  his  own  messengers.  A 
phantom  in  a  ballad  was  not  swifter 
than  he.  Simultaneously  his  sword 
flashed  in  Germany,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Adriatic,   in   that    Ultima  Thule 


16  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

where  the  Britons  lived.  From  the 
depths  of  Gaul  he  dominated  Rome, 
and  therewith  he  was  penetrating 
impenetrable  forests,  trailing  legions 
as  a  torch  trails  smoke,  erecting  walls 
that  a  nation  could  not  cross,  turning 
soldiers  into  marines,  infantry  into 
cavalry,  building  roads  that  are  roads 
to-day,  fighting  with  one  hand  and 
writing  an  epic  with  the  other,  dictat- 
ing love-letters,  chronicles,  dramas; 
finding  time  to  make  a  collection  of 
witticisms;  overturning  thrones  while 
he  decorated  Greece;  mingling  initiate 
into  orgies  of  the  Druids,  and,  as 
the  cymbals  clashed,  coquetting  with 
those  terrible  virgins  who  awoke  the 
tempest;  not  only  conquering,  but 
captivating,  transforming  barbarians 
into  soldiers  and  those  soldiers  into 
senators,  submitting  three  hundred 
nations  and  ransacking  Britannia  for 
pearls  for  his  mistresses'  ears. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  17 

Each  epoch  has  its  secret,  and  each 
epoch-maker  his  own.  Caesar's  secret 
lay  in  the  power  he  had  of  projecting 
a  soul  into  the  ranks  of  an  army,  of 
making  legions  and  their  leader  one. 
Disobedience  only  he  punished;  any- 
thing else  he  forgave.  After  a  victory 
his  soldiery  did  what  they  liked.  He 
gave  them  arms,  slaves  to  burnish 
them,  women,  feasts,  sleep.  They 
were  his  comrades;  he  called  them  so; 
he  wept  at  the  death  of  any  of  them, 
and  when  the}'  were  frightened,  as 
they  were  in  Gaul  before  they  met 
the  Germans,  and  in  Africa  before 
they  encountered  Juba,  Caesar  fright- 
ened them  still  more.  He  permitted 
no  questions,  no  making  of  wills. 
The  cowards  could  hide  where  they 
liked;  his  old  guard,  the  Tenth,  would 
do  the  work  alone;  or,-  threat  still 
more  sinister,  he  would  command  a 
retreat.    Ah,  that,  never!    Fanaticism 

2 


18  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

returned,  the  legions  begged   to   be 
punished. 

Michelet  says  he  would  like  to  have 
seen  him  crossing  Gaul,  bare-headed 
in  the  rain.  It  would  have  been  as 
interesting,  perhaps,  to  have  watched 
him  beneath  the  shade  of  the  velar- 
ium pleading  the  cause  of  Masintha 
against  the  Numidian  king.  Before 
him  was  a  crowd  that  covered  not 
the  Forum  alone,  but  the  steps  of  the 
adjacent  temples,  the  roofs  of  the 
basilicas,  the  arches  of  Janus,  one  that 
extended  remotely  to  the  black  walls 
of  the  Curia  Hostilia  beyond.  And 
there,  on  the  rostrum,  a  musician  be- 
hind him  supplying  the  la  from  a  flute, 
the  air  filled  with  gold  motes,  Caesar, 
his  toga  becomingly  adjusted,  a  jew- 
elled hand  extended,  opened  for  the 
defense.  Presently,  when  through 
the  exercise  of  that  art  of  his  which 
Cicero  pronounced  incomparable,  he 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  19 

felt  that  the  sympathy  of  the  audience 
was  won,  it  would  have  been  interest- 
ing, indeed,  to  have  heard  him  argue 
point  after  point — clearly,  brilliantly, 
wittily ;  insulting  the  plaintiff  in  poetic 
terms;  consigning  him  gracefully  to 
the  infernal  regions;  accentuating  a 
fictitious  and  harmonious  anger;  dry- 
ing his  forehead  without  disarranging 
his  hair;  suffocating  with  the  emo- 
tions he  evoked;  displaying  real  tears, 
and  with  them  a  knowledge,  not  only 
of  law,  rhetoric,  philosophy,  but  of 
geometry,  astronomy,  ethics  and  the 
fine  arts;  blinding  his  hearers  with  the 
coruscations  of  his  erudition;  stirring 
them  with  his  tongue,  as  with  the  point 
of  a  sword,  until,  as  though  abruptly 
possessed  by  an  access  of  fury,  he 
seized  the  plaintiff  by  the  beard  and 
sent  him  spinning  like  a  leaf  which 
the  wind  has  caught. 

It  would  have  bored  no  one   either 


20  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

to  have  assisted  at  his  triumph  when 
he  returned  from  Gaul,  when  he  re- 
turned after  Spain,  after  Pharsalus, 
when  he  returned  from  Cleopatra's 
arms. 

On  that  day  the  Via  Sacra  was  cur- 
tained with  silk.  To  the  blare  of 
twisted  bugles  there  descended  to  it 
from  the  turning  at  the  hill  a  troop  of 
musicians  garmented  in  leather  tunics, 
bonneted  with  lions'  heads.  Behind 
them  a  hundred  bulls,  too  fat  to  be 
troublesome,  and  decked  for  death, 
bellowed  musingly  at  the  sacrifants, 
who,  naked  to  the  waist,  a  long-han- 
dled hammer  on  the  shoulder,  main- 
tained them  with  colored  cords.  To 
the  rumble  of  wide  wheels  and  the 
thunder  of  spectators  the  prodigious 
booty  passed,  and  with  it  triumphs  of 
war,  vistas  of  conquered  countries, 
pictures  of  battles,  lists  of  the  van- 
quished,   symbols    of   cities    that   no 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  21 

longer  were;  a  stretch  of  ivory  on 
which  shone  three  words,  each  begin- 
ning with  a  V;  images  of  gods  dis- 
turbed, the  Rhine,  the  Rhone,  the 
captive  Ocean  in  massive  gold;  the 
ghtter  of  three  thousand  crowns 
offered  to  the  dictator  by  the  army 
and  aUies  of  Rome.  Then  came  the 
standards  of  the  repubhc,  a  swarm 
of  eagles,  the  size  of  pigeons,  in  pol- 
ished silver  upheld  by  lances  which 
ensigns  bore,  preceding  the  six 
hundred  senators  who  marched  in  a 
body,  their  togas  bordered  with  red, 
while  to  the  din  of  incessant  insults, 
interminable  files  of  prisoners  passed, 
their  wrists  chained  to  iron  collars, 
which  held  their  heads  very  straight, 
and  to  the  rear  a  litter,  in  which 
crouched  the  Vincegetorix  of  Gaul,  a 
great  moody  giant,  his  menacing  eyes 
nearly  hidden  in  the  tangles  of  his 
tawny  hair. 


22  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

When  they  had  gone  the  street  was 
aHve  with  explosions  of  brass,  aflame 
with  the  burning  red  cloaks  of  laureled 
lictors  making  way  for  the  coming 
of  Csesar.  Four  horses,  harnessed 
abreast,  their  manes  dyed,  their  fore- 
locks puffed,  drew  a  high  and  wonder- 
fully jeweled  car;  and  there,  in  the 
attributes  and  attitude  of  Jupiter 
Capitolinus,  Caesar  sat,  blinking  his 
tired  eyes.  His  face  and  arms  were 
painted  vermilion;  above  the  Tyrian 
purple  of  his  toga,  above  the  gold 
work  and  palms  of  his  tunic,  there 
oscillated  a  little  ball  in  which  there 
were  charms  against  Envy.  On  his 
head  a  wreath  concealed  his  increas- 
ing baldness;  along  his  left  arm  the 
sceptre  lay;  behind  him  a  boy  admon- 
ished him  noisily  to  remember  he  was 
man,  while  to  the  rear  for  miles  and 
miles  there  rang  the  laugh  of  trumpets, 
the  click  of  castanets,  the  shouts  of 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  23 

dancers,  the  roar  of  the  multitude,  the 
tramp  of  legions,  and  the  cry,,  caught 
up  and  repeated,  "/(?/  TriompkeP'' 

Presently,  in  the  temple  of  the  god 
of  gods,  side  by  side  with  the  statue  of 
Jupiter,  Caesar  found  his  own  statue 
with  "  Csesar,  demi-god,"  at  its  base. 
The  captive  chiefs  disappeared  in 
the  TuUianum,  and  a  herald  called, 
"They  have  lived!"  Through  the 
squares  jesters  circulated,  polyglot 
and  obscene;  in  the  circus  the  flower 
of  the  nobility  held  the  reins;  across 
the  Tiber,  in  an  artificial  lake,  the 
flotilla  of  Egypt  fought  against  that 
of  Tyr;  in  the  amphitheatre  there 
was  a  combat  of  soldiers,  infantry 
against  cavalry,  one  that  indemnified 
those  that  had  not  seen  the  massacres 
in  Thessaly  and  in  Spain.  There  were 
public  feasts,  gifts  to  every  one. 
Tables  were  set  in  the  Forum,  in  the 
circuses  and  theatres.    Falernian   cir- 


24  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

culated  in  amphorae,  Chius  in  barrels, 
When  the  populace  was  gorged  there 
were  the  red  feathers  to  enable  it  to 
gorge  again.  Intoxication  knew  no 
frontiers.  In  the  arenas  the  gladia- 
tors died  consoled.  Of  the  Rome  of 
Romulus  there  was  nothing  left  save 
the  gaunt  she-wolf,  her  wide  lips  curled 
at  the  descendants  of  her  nursling. 

Later,  when  in  slippered  feet  Caesar 
wandered  through  those  lovely  gar- 
dens of  his  that  lay  beyond  the  Tiber, 
it  may  be  that  he  recalled  a  dream 
which  had  come  to  him  as  a  lad;  one 
which  concerned  the  submission  of 
his  mother;  one  which  had  disturbed 
him  until  the  soothsayers  said:  "The 
mother  you  saw  is  the  earth,  and  you 
will  be  her  master."  And  as  the 
memory  of  the  dream  returned,  per- 
haps with  it  came  the  memory  of  the 
hour  when  as  simple  quaestor  he  had 
wept  at  Gaddir  before  a  statue  that 


IMPERIAL  'PURPLE.  25 

was  there.  Demi-god,  yes;  he  was 
that.  More,  even ;  he  was  dictator,  but 
the  dream  was  unfulfilled.  There  were 
the  depths  of  Hither  Asia,  the  mys- 
teries that  lay  beyond;  there  were  the 
glimmering  plains  of  the  Caucasus; 
there  were  the  Vistula  and  the  Baltic; 
the  diadems  of  Cyrus  and  of  Alexan- 
der defying  his  ambition  yet,  and 
what  were  triumphs  and  divinity  to 
one  who  would  own  the  world! 

It  was  this  that  preoccupied  him. 
The  immensity  of  his  successes  seemed 
petty  and  Rome  very  small.  Hereto- 
fore he  had  forgiven  those  who  had 
opposed  him.  Presently  his  attitude 
changed,  and  so  subtly  that  it  was  the 
more  humiliating;  it  was  not  that  he 
no  longer  forgave,  he  disdained  to 
punish.  His  contempt  was  absolute. 
The  senate  made  his  office  of  ponti- 
fix  maximus  hereditary  and  accorded 
the  title  of  Imperator  to  his  heirs.     He 


26  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

snubbed  the  senate  and  the  honors 
that  it  brought.  The  senate  was 
shocked.  Composed  of  men  whose 
fortunes  he  had  made,  the  senate  was 
not  only  shocked,  its  education  in  in- 
gratitude was  complete.  Already 
there  had  been  murmurs.  Not  con- 
tent with  disarranging  the  calendar, 
outlining  an  empire,  drafting  a  code 
while  planning  fresh  beauties,  new  the- 
atres, bi-lingual  libraries,  larger  tem- 
ples, grander  gods,  Caesar  was  at  work 
in  the  markets,  in  the  kitchens  of  the 
gourmets,  in  the  jewel-boxes  of  the 
virgins.  Liberty,  visibly,  was  taking 
flight.  Besides,  the  power  concen- 
trated in  him  might  be  so  pleasantly 
distributed.  It  was  decided  that 
Caesar  was  in  the  way.  To  put  him 
out  of  it  a  pretext  was  necessary. 

One  day  the  senate  assembled  at 
his  command.  They  were  to  sign  a 
decree  creating  him  king.     In  order 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  27 

not  to,  Suetonius  says,  they  killed  him, 
wounding  each  other  in  the  effort,  for 
Caesar  fought  like  the  demon  that  he 
was,  desisting  only  when  he  recog- 
nized Brutus,  to  whom,  in  Greek,  he 
muttered  a  reproach,  and,  draping  his 
toga  that  he  might  fall  with  decency, 
fell  backward,  his  head  covered,  a 
few  feet  from  the  bronze  wolf  that 
stood,  its  ears  pointed  at  the  letters 
S.  P.  Q.  R.  which  decorated  a  frieze 
of  the  Curia. 

Brutus  turned  to  harangue  the  sen- 
ate; it  had  fled.  He  went  to  the 
Forum  to  address  the  people ;  there  was 
no  one.  Rome  was  strangely  empty. 
Doors  were  barricaded,  windows 
closed.  Through  the  silent  streets 
gladiators  prowled.  Night  came, 
and  with  it  whispering  groups.  The 
groups  thickened,  voices  mounted. 
Caesar's  will  had  been  read.  He  had 
left  his  gardens  to  the  people,  a  gift 


28  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

to  every  citizen,  his  wealth  and  power 
to  his  butchers.  The  body,  which  two 
slaves  had  removed,  an  arm  hanging 
from  the  litter,  had  never  been  as 
powerfully  alive.  Caesar  reigned  then 
as  never  before.     An  actor  mouthed: 

"I  brought  them  life,  they  gave  me  death." 

And  willingly  would  the  mob  have 
made  Rome  the  funeral  pyre  of  their 
idol.  In  the  sky  a  comet  appeared. 
It  was  his  soul  on  its  way  to  Olym- 
pus. 


II. 

CONJECTURAL    ROME 


II. 

CONJECTURAL    ROME. 

"I  received  Rome  in  brick;  I  shall 
leave  it  in  marble,"  said  Augustus, 
who  was  fond  of  fine  phrases,  a  trick 
he  had  caught  from  Vergil.  And 
when  he  looked  from  his  home  on  the 
Palatine  over  the  glitter  of  the  Forum 
and  the  glare  of  the  Capitol  to  the 
new  and  wonderful  precinct  which 
extended  to  the  Field  of  Mars,  there 
w^s  a  stretch  of  splendor  which  sanc- 
tioned the  boast.  The  city  then  was 
very  vast.  The  tourist  might  walk  in 
it,  as  in  the  London  of  to-day,mile  after 
mile,  and  at  whatever  point  he  placed 
himself,  Rome  still  lay  beyond;  a 
Rome  quite  like  London — one  that 
was  choked  with  mystery,  with  gold 
and  curious  crime. 


32  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

But  it  was  not  all  marble.  There 
were  green  terraces  and  porphyry 
porticoes  that  leaned  to  a  river 
on  which  red  galleys  passed;  there 
were  theatres  in  which  a  multitude 
could  jeer  at  an  emperor,  and  arenas 
in  which  an  emperor  could  watch 
a  multitude  die;  there  were  bronze 
doors  and  garden  roofs,  glancing  villas 
and  temples  that  defied  the  sun;  there 
were  spacious  streets,  a  Forum  cur- 
tained with  silk,  the  glint  and  evoca- 
tions of  trophies  of  war,  the  splendor 
of  a  host  of  gods,  but  it  was  not  all 
marble;  there  were  rents  in  the  mag- 
nificence and  tatters  in  the  laticlave 
of  state. 

In  the  Subura,  where  at  night 
women  sat  in  high  chairs,  ogling  the 
passer  with  painted  eyes,  there  was 
still  plenty  of  brick;  tall  tenements, 
soiled  linen,  the  odor  of  Whitechapel 
and  St.  Giles.    The  streets  were  noisy 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  33 

with  match-peddlers,  with  vendors  of 
cake  and  tripe  and  coke;  there  were 
touts  there  too,  altars  to  unimportant 
divinities,  lying  Jews  who  dealt  in  old 
clothes,  in  obscene  pictures  and  un- 
mentionable wares;  at  the  crossings 
there  were  thimbleriggers,  clowns  and 
jugglers,  who  made  glass  balls  appear 
and  disappear  surprisingly ;  there  were 
doorways  decorated  with  curious  in- 
vitations, gossippy  barbershops,  where 
through  the  liberality  of  politicians, 
the  scum  of  a  great  city  was  shaved, 
curled  and  painted  free;  and  there 
were  public  houses,  where  vagabond 
slaves  and  sexless  priests  drank  the 
mulled  wine  of  Crete,  supped  on  the 
flesh  of  beasts  slaughtered  in  the 
arena,  or  watched  the  Syrian  women 
twist  to  the  click  of  castanets. 

Beyond  were  grey  quadrangular 
buildings,  the  stomach  of  Rome, 
through     which,    each    noon,    ediles 


34  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

passed,  verifying  the  prices,  the 
weights  and  measures  of  the  market 
men,  examining  the  fish  and  meats, 
the  enormous  cauHflowers  that  came 
from  the  suburbs,  Veronese  carrots, 
Arician  pears,  stout  thrushes,  suckling 
pigs,  eggs  embedded  in  grass,  03'sters 
from  Baiae,  boxes  of  onions  and  garlic 
mixed,  mountains  of  poppies,  beans 
and  fennel,  destroying  whatever  had 
ceased  to  be  fresh  and  taxing  that 
which  was. 

On  the  Via  Sacra  were  the  fine 
shops  frequented  by  ladies;  bazaars 
where  silks  and  xylons  were  to  be 
had,  essences  and  unguents,  travel- 
ing boxes  of  scented  wood,  switches 
of  3'ellow  hair,  useful  drugs  such 
as  hemlock,  aconite,  mandragora 
and  cantharidcs;  the  last  thing 
of  Ovid's  and  the  MtXrjotut  Xoyov  those 
improper  little  novels  that  came  from 
Greece. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  35 

On  the  Appian  Way,  through  green 
afternoons  and  pink  arcades,  fashion 
strolled.  There  wealth  passed  in  its 
chariots,  smart  young  men  that  smelt 
of  cinnamon  instead  of  war,  nobles, 
matrons  and  cocottes. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  city,  be- 
yond the  menagerie  of  the  Pantheon, 
was  the  Field  of  Mars,  an  open-air 
gymnasium,  where  every  form  of  ex- 
ercise was  to  be  had,  even  to  that  sim- 
ple promenade  in  which  the  Romans 
delighted,  and  which  in  Caesar's  camp 
so  astonished  the  Verronians  that  they 
thought  the  promenaders  crazy  and 
offered  to  lead  them  to  their  tents. 
There  was  tennis  for  those  who  liked 
it;  racquets,  polo,  football,  quoits, 
wrestling,  everything  apt  to  induce 
perspiration  and  prepare  for  the  hour 
when  a  gong  of  bronze  announced  the 
opening  of  the  baths— those  wonder- 
ful baths,  where  the  Roman,  his  slaves 


36  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

about  him,  after  passing  through 
steam  and  water  and  the  hands  of  the 
masseur,  had  every  hair  plucked  from 
his  arms,  legs  and  armpits;  his  flesh 
rubbed  down  with  nard,  his  limbs 
polished  with  pumice;  and  then, 
wrapped  in  a  scarlet  robe,  lined  with 
fur,  was  sent  home  in  a  litter.  "Strike 
them  in  the  face!"  cried  Caesar  at 
Pharsalus,  when  the  young  patricians 
made  their  charge;  and  the  young 
patricians,  who  cared  more  for  their 
looks  than  they  did  for  victory,  turned 
and  fled. 

It  was  to  the  Field  of  Mars  that 
Agrippa  came,  to  whom  Rome  owed 
the  Pantheon  and  the  demand  for  a 
law  which  should  inhibit  the  private 
ownership  of  a  masterpiece.  There, 
too,  his  eunuchs  about  him,  Mecsenas 
lounged,  companioned  by  Varus,  by 
Horace  and  the  mime  Bathylle,  all 
of  whom  he  was  accustomed  to  invite 


IMPERIAL     PURPLE.  37 

to  that  lovely  villa  of  his  which  over- 
looked the  blue  Sabinian  hills,  and 
where  suppers  were  given  such  as 
those  which  Petronius  has  described 
so  alertly  and  so  well. 

In  a  hall  like  that  of  Mecaenas',  one 
divided  against  itself,  the  upper  half 
containing  the  couches  and  tables,  the 
other  reserved  for  the  service  and  the 
entertainments  that  follow,  the  ceiling 
was  met  by  columns,  the  walls  hid- 
den by  panels  of  gems.  On  a  frieze 
twelve  pictures,  surmounted  by  the 
signs  of  the  zodiac,  represented  the 
dishes  of  the  different  months.  Be- 
neath the  bronze  beds  and  silver 
tables  mosaics  were  set  in  imitation 
of  food  that  had  fallen  and  had  not 
been  swept  away.  And  there,  in 
white  ungirdled  tunics,  the  head  and 
neck  circled  with  coils  of  amaranth — 
the  perfume  of  which  in  opening  the 
pores  neutralizes  the  fumes  of  wine — 


38  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  guests  lay,  fanned  by  boys,  whose 
curly  hair  they  used  for  napkins. 
Under  the  supervision  of  a  butler  the 
courses  were  served  on  platters  so 
large  that  they  covered  the  tables; 
sows'  breasts  with  Lybian  truffles; 
dormice  baked  in  poppies  and  honey; 
peacock-tongues  flavored  with  cin- 
namon; oysters  stewed  in  garum — a 
sauce  made  of  the  intestines  of  fish — 
sea-wolves  from  the  Baltic;  sturgeons 
from  Rhodes;  fig-peckers  from  Samos; 
African  snails;  pale  beans  in  pink 
lard;  and  a  yellow  pig  cooked  after 
the  Trojan  fashion,  from  which,  when 
carved,  hot  sausages  fell  and  live 
thrushes  flew.  Therewith  was  the 
mulsum,  a  cup  made  of  white  wine, 
nard,  roses,  absinthe  and  honey;  the 
delicate  sweet  wines  of  Greece;  and 
crusty  Falernian  of  the  year  six  hun- 
dred and  thirty-two.  As  the  cups 
circulated,    choirs    entered,  chanting 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  39 

sedately  the  last  erotic  song;  lithe 
virgins,  their  bodies  rubbed  with  oil, 
wrestled  like  athletes  in  the  games;  a 
clown  danced  on  the  top  of  a  ladder, 
which  he  maintained  upright  as  he 
danced,  telling  meanwhile  untellable 
stories  to  the  frieze;  and  host  and 
guests,  unvociferously,  as  good  breed- 
ing dictates,  chatted  through  the 
pauses  of  the  service;  discussed  the 
disadvantages  of  death,  the  value  of 
Ncevian  iambics,  the  disgrace  of  Ovid, 
banished  because  of  Livia's  eyes. 

Such  was  the  Rome  of  Augustus. 
"Caesar,"  cried  a  mime  to  him  one 
day,  "do  you  know  that  it  is  import- 
ant for  you  that  the  people  should  be 
interested  in  Bathylle  and  in  myself?" 

The  mime  was  right.  The  sover- 
eign of  Rome  was  not  the  Caesar,  nor 
yet  the  aristocracy.  The  latter  was 
dead.  It  had  been  banished  by  bar- 
barian senators,  by    barbarian   gods; 


40  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

it  had  died  twice,  at  Pliarsalus,  at 
Philippi;  it  was  the  people  that  was 
sovereign,  and  it  was  important  that 
that  sovereign  should  be  amused — 
flattered,  too,  and  fed.  For  thirty 
years  not  a  Roman  of  note  had  died 
in  his  bed;  not  one  but  had  kept  by 
him  a  slave  who  should  kill  him  when 
his  hour  had  come;  anarchy  had  been 
continuous;  but  now  Rome  was  at 
rest  and  its  sovereign  wished  to  laugh. 
Made  up  of  every  nation  and  every 
vice,  the  universe  was  ransacked  for 
its  entertainment.  The  mountains 
sent  its  lions,  the  desert  giraffes;  there 
were  boas  from  the  jungles,  bulls  from 
the  plains,  and  hippopotami  from  the 
waters  of  the  Nile.  Into  the  arenas 
patricians  descended;  in  the  amphi- 
theatre there  were  criminals  from 
Gaul;  in  the  Forum  philosophers  from 
Greece.  On  the  stage  there  were 
tragedies,    pantomimes      and     farce; 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  41 

there  were  races  in  the  circus,  and 
in  the  sacred  groves  girls  with  the 
Orient  in  their  eyes  and  sHm  waists 
that  swayed  to  the  crotals.  For  the 
thirst  of  the  sovereign  there  were 
aqueducts,  and  for  its  hunger  Africa, 
Egypt,  Sicily  contributed  grain. 
Syria  unveiled  her  altars,  Persia  the 
mystery  and  magnificence  of  her 
gods. 

Such  was  Rome.  Augustus  was 
less  noteworthy ;  so  unnecessary  even 
that  every  student  must  regret  Ac- 
tium,  Anthony's  defeat,  the  passing 
of  Caesar's  dream.  For  Anthony  was 
made  for  conquests;  it  was  he  who, 
fortune  favoring,  might  have  given 
the  world  to  Rome.  A  splendid,  an 
impudent  bandit,  first  and  foremost  a 
soldier,  vaunting  himself  a  descendant 
of  Hercules  whom  he  resembled; 
hailed  at  Ephesus  as  Bacchus,  in 
Egypt  as  Osiris;  Asiatic  in  lavishness, 


i2  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

and  Teuton  in  his  capacity  for  drink; 
vomiting  in  the  open  Forum,  and 
making  and  unmaking  kings;  weav- 
ing with  that  viper  of  the  Nile  a 
romance  which  is  history;  passing  in- 
itiate into  t»he  inimitable  life,  it  would 
have  been  curious  to  have  watched 
him  that  last  night  when  the  silence 
was  stirred  by  the  hum  of  harps,  the 
cries  of  bacchantes  bearing  his  tute- 
lary god  back  to  the  Roman  camp, 
while  he  bade  farewell  to  love,  to 
empire  and  to  life. 

Augustus  resembled  him  not  at  all. 
He  was  a  colorless  monarch;  an 
emperor  in  ever3'thing  but  dignity,  a 
prince  in  everything  but  grace ;  a  tac- 
tician, not  a  soldier;  a  superstitious 
braggart,  afraid  of  nothing  but  danger ; 
seducing  women  to  learn  their  hus- 
bands' secrets;  exiling  his  daughter, 
not  because  she  had  lovers,  but  be- 
cause she  had  other  lovers  than  him- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  43 

self;  exiling  Ovid  because  of  Li  via, 
who  in  the  end  poisoned  her  prince, 
and  adroitly,  too;  illiterate,  blundering 
of  speech,  and  coarse  of  manner — a 
hypocrite  and  a  comedian  in  one  —so 
guileful  and  yet  so  stupid  that  while 
a  credulous  moribund  ordered  the 
gods  to  be  thanked  that  Augustus 
survived  him,  the  people  publicly 
applied  to  him  an  epithet  which  des- 
ignates an  unnameable  beast. 

Such  was  the  individual  whom 
school-girls  are  instructed  to  admire, 
though  for  what  reason  it  is  difficult 
to  fancy,  unless  it  be  that  he  is 
regarded  as  a  patron  of  letters  of 
which  he  knew  nothing,  the  host  of 
pedantic  bores.  After  Philippi  and 
the  suicide  of  Brutus;  after  Actium 
and  Anthony's  death,  admittedly,  for 
the  first  time  in  ages,  the  gates  of  the 
Temple  of  Janus  were  closed.  There 
was  peace  in  the  world;  but  it  was 


44  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  sword  of  Caesar,  not  of  Augustus, 
that  brought  the  insurgents  to  book. 
At  each  of  the  victories  he  was  either 
asleep  or  ill.  At  the  time  of  battle 
there  was  always  some  god  warning 
him  to  be  careful.  The  battle  won, 
he  was  brave,  pitiless  and  ready  of 
jest.  A  father  and  son  begged  for 
mercy.  He  promised  forgiveness  to 
the  son  on  condition  that  he  killed 
his  father.  The  son  accepted  and  did 
the  work;  then  he  had  the  son  des- 
patched. A  prisoner  begged  but  for 
a  grave.  "The  vultures  will  see  to 
it,"  he  answered.  When  at  the  head 
of  Caesar's  legions,  he  entered  Rome 
to  avenge  the  latter's  death,  he  an- 
nounced beforehand  that  he  would 
imitate  neither  Caesar's  moderation 
nor  Sylla's  cruelty.  There  would  be 
only  a  few  proscriptions,  and  a  price 
— and  what  a  price,  liberty! — was 
placed  on  the  heads    of  hundreds  of 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  45 

senators  and  thousands  of  knights. 
And  these  notables,  who  had  more 
slaves  than  they  knew  by  sight,  slaves 
whom  they  tossed  alive  to  fatten  fish, 
slaves  to  whom  they  affected  never 
to  speak,  and  who  were  crucified  did 
they  so  much  as  sneeze  in  their 
presence — at  the  feet  of  these  slaves 
the  aristocrats  rolled,  imploring  them 
not  to  deliver  them  up.  Now  and 
then  a  slave  was  merciful;  Augustus 
never. 

Successes  such  as  these  made  him 
ambitious.  Having  vanquished  with 
the  sword,  he  tried  the  pen.  "You 
may  grant  the  freedom  of  the  city  to 
your  barbarians,"  said  a  wit  to  him 
one  day,  "but  not  to  your  solecisms." 
Undeterred  he  began  a  tragedy 
entitled  AJax,  and  discovering  his 
incompetence,  gave  it  up.  "And 
what  has  become  of  Ajax.^"  a  para- 
site asked,     "Ajax  threw  himself  on 


46  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

a  sponge,"  replied  Augustus,  whose 
father,  it  is  to  be  regretted,  did  not  do 
likewise.  Nevertheless,  it  were  pleas- 
ant to  have  assisted  at  his  funeral. 

A  couch  of  ivory  and  gold,  ten 
feet  high,  draped  with  purple,  stood 
for  a  week  in  the  atrium  of  the  pal- 
ace. Within  the  couch,  hidden  from 
view,  the  bod}^  of  the  emperor  lay, 
ravaged  by  poison.  Above  was  a 
statue,  recumbent,  in  wax,  made  after 
his  image  and  dressed  in  imperial 
robes.  Near  by  a  little  slave  with  a 
big  fan  protected  the  statue  from  flies. 
Each  day  physicians  came,  gazed  at 
the  closed  wax  mouth,  and  murmured, 
"He  is  worse."  In  the  vestibule  was  a 
pot  of  burning  ilex,  and  stretching 
out  through  the  portals  a  branch  of 
cypress  warned  the  pontiffs  from  the 
contamination  of  the  sight  of  death. 

At  high  noon  on  the  seventh  day 
the   funeral   crossed  the  city.     First 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  47 

were  the  flaming  torches;  the  statues 
of  the  House  of  Octavia;  senators  in 
blue;  knights  in  scarlet;  magistrates; 
lictors ;  the  pick  of  the  praetorian  guard. 
Then,  to  the  alternating  choruses  of 
boys  and  girls,  the  rotting  body  passed 
down  the  Sacred  Way.  Behind  it 
Tiberius  in  a  travelling-cloak,  his 
hands  unringed,  marched  meditating 
on  the  curiosities  of  life,  while  to  the 
rear  there  straggled  a  troop  of  danc- 
ing satyrs,  led  by  a  mime  dressed  in 
resemblance  of  Augustus,  whose  de- 
fects he  caricatured,  whose  vices  he 
parodied  and  on  whom  the  surging 
crowd  closed  in. 

On  the  Field  of  Mars  the  pyre  had 
been  erected,  a  great  square  structure 
of  resinous  wood,  the  interior  filled 
with  coke  and  sawdust,  the  exterior 
covered  with  illuminated  cloths,  on 
which,  for  base,  a  tower  rose,  three 
stories  high.     Into  the  first  story  flow- 


48  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

ers  and  perfumes  were  thrown,  into 
the  second  the  couch  was  raised,  then 
a  torch  was  appHed. 

As  the  smoke  ascended  an  eagle 
shot  from  the  summit,  circled  a  mo- 
ment, and  disappeared.  For  the  sum 
of  a  million  sesterces  a  senator  swore 
that  with  the  eagle  he  had  seen  the 
emperor's  soul. 


III. 

FABULOUS    FIELDS. 


III. 

FABULOUS    FIELDS. 

Mention  Tiberius,  and  the  name 
evokes  a  sceptered  butcher,  ill  with 
satyrisis;  a  taciturn  tyrant,  hideous 
and  debauched;  an  unclean  old  man 
devising  in  the  crypts  of  a  palace  infa- 
mies so  monstrous  that  to  describe 
them  new  words  were  coined. 

In  the  Borghese  collection  Tiberius 
is  rather  good-looking  than  otherwise, 
not  an  Antinous  certainly,  but  mani- 
festly a  dreamer;  one  whose  eyes  must 
have  been  almost  feline  in  their  ab- 
straction, and  in  the  corners  of  whose 
mouth  you  detect  pride,  no  doubt,  but 
melancholy  as  well.  The  pride  was 
congenital,  the  melancholy  was    not. 

Under  Tiberius  there  was  quiet,  a 
romancer  wrote,  and  the  phrase  in  its 


62  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

significance  passed  into  legend,  form- 
ing as  it  passed  one  of  those  miscon- 
ceptions that  shroud  the  unprotected 
dead.  During  the  dozen  or  more 
years  that  Tiberius  ruled  in  Rome, 
his  wisdom,  moderation,  modesty  and 
impartiality  were  recognized  and  at- 
tested. The  Tiber  overflowed,  the 
senate  looked  for  a  remedy  in  the  Siby- 
line  Books.  Tiberius  set  some  en- 
gineers to  work.  A  citizen  swore  by 
Augustus  and  sWore  falsely.  The  sen- 
ate sought  to  punish  him,  not  for  per- 
jury but  for  sacrilege.  It  is  for  Au- 
gustus to  punish,  said  Tiberius.  The 
senate  wanted  to  name  a  month  after 
him.  Tiberius  declined.  "Suppos- 
ing I  were  the  thirteenth  Caesar,  what 
would  you  do  .^"  For  years  he  reigned, 
popular  and  acclaimed,  caring  the 
while  nothing  for  popularity  and  less 
for  pomp.  Sagacious,  witty  even,  be- 
lieving perhaps  in  little  else  than  fate 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  53 

and  mathematics,  yet  maintaining  the 
institutions  of  the  land,  striving  reso- 
lutely for  the  best,  outwardly  impas- 
sible and  inwardly  mobile,  he  was  a 
man  and  his  patience  had  bounds. 
There  were  conspirators  in  the  atrium, 
there  was  death  in  the  courtier's 
smile;  and  finding  his  favorites  false, 
his  life  threatened,  danger  at  every 
turn,  his  conception  of  rulership 
changed.  Where  moderation  had 
been  suddenly  there  gleamed  the  axe. 
Tacitus,  always  dramatic,  states 
that  at  the  time  terror  devasted  the 
city.  It  so  happened  that  under  the 
republic  there  was  a  law  against 
whomso  diminished  the  majesty  of 
the  people.  The  republic  was  a  god, 
one  that  had  its  temple,  its  priests,  its 
altars.  When  the  republic  suc- 
cumbed, its  divinity  passed  to  the 
emperor;  he  became  Jupiter's  peer, 
and,  as  such,  possessed  of  a  majesty 


64  IMPERIAL  FURl'LE. 

which  it  was  sacrileofe  to  sHg-ht. 
Consulted  on  the  subject,  Tiberius 
replied  that  the  law  must  be  observed. 
Originally  instituted  in  prevention  of 
offenses  against  the  public  good,  it 
was  found  to  change  into  a  crime,  a 
word,  a  gesture  or  a  look.  It  was  a 
crime  to  undress  before  a  statue  of 
Augustus,  to  mention  his  name  in  the 
latrincc,  to  carry  a  coin  with  his  image 
into  a  lupanar.  The  punishment  was 
death.  Of  the  property  of  the 
accused,  a  third  went  to  the  informer, 
the  rest  to  the  state.  Then  abruptly 
terror  stalked  abroad.  No  one  was 
safe  except  the  obscure,  and  it  was  the 
obscure  that  accused.  Once  an 
accused  accused  his  accuser;  the 
latter  went  mad.  There  was  but  one 
refuge — the  tomb.  If  the  accused  had 
time  to  kill  himself  before  he  was 
tried,  his  property  was  safe  from 
seizure  and  his  corpse  from  disgrace. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  66 

Suicide  became  endemic  in  Rome. 
Never  among  the  rich  were  orgies  as 
frenetic  as  then.  There  was  a  breath- 
less chase  after  delights,  which  the 
summons,  "It  is  time  to  die,"  might 
at  any  moment  interrupt. 

Tiberius  meanwhile  had  gone  from 
Rome.  It  was  then  his  legend  began. 
He  was  represented  living  at  Capri 
in  a  collection  of  twelve  villas,  each 
of  which  was  dedicated  to  a  particu- 
lar form  of  lust,  and  there  with  the 
paintings  of  Parrhasius  for  stimulant 
the  satyr  lounged.  He  was  then  an  old 
man;  his  life  had  been  passed  in  pub- 
lic, his  morals  unreproved.  If  no  one 
becomes  suddenly  base,  it  is  rare  for 
a  man  of  seventy  to  become  abruptly 
vile.  "Whoso,"  Sakya  Muni  an- 
nounced— "whoso  discovers  that  grief 
comes  from  affection,will  retire  into  the 
jungles  and  there  remain."  Tiberius 
had  made  the  discovery.    The  jungles 


66  IMPERIAL  PTtrplE. 

he  selected  were  the  gardens  by  the 
sea.  And  in  those  gardens,  gossip 
represented  him  devising  new.  forms 
of  old  vice.  On  the  subject  every 
doubt  is  permissible,  and  even  other- 
wise, morality  then  existed  in  but  one 
form,  one  which  the  entire  nation 
observed,  wholly,  absolutely,  and  with 
all  its  soul;  that  form  was  patriotism. 
Chastity  was  expected  of  the  vestal, 
but  of  no  one  else.  The  matrons  had 
certain  traditions  to  maintain,  certain 
appearances  to  preserve,  but  other- 
wise everybody  was  free  enough,  and 
that  everybody  made  use  of  that 
freedom,  the  law  Pappea  Poppoea 
attests. 

In  those  days  matrimony  was  not 
as  frequent  as  it  has  since  become. 
When  it  occurred,  divorce  was  its 
natural  consequence.  Incompatibility 
was  sufficient  cause.  Cicero,  who  has 
given    it    to    history    that    the    best 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  57 

women  counted  the  years  not  numeri- 
cally, but  by  their  different  husbands, 
obtained  a  divorce  on  the  ground  that 
his  wife  did  not  idolize  him.  Many 
a  man  on  his  return  from  a  journey 
discovered  that  the  lady  he  had  left  at 
the  head  of  his  house  had  obtained  a 
divorce  in  his  absence.  According 
to  Plutarch,  a  gentleman,  Hortensius 
by  name,  became  enamored  of 
Cato's  daughter,  Portia,  then  the  wife 
of  Bibulus,  and  begged  Cato  to  hand 
her  over  to  him.  Cato  refused,  -alleg- 
insf  that  Portia  was  in  love  with  her 
husband.  At  this,  Hortensius,  casting 
about  for  a  seductive  argument,  sug- 
gested that  if  Portia  would  consent 
to  be  his  wife,  so  soon  as  she  became 
a  mother,  she  might  return  to  Bibulus. 
Cato,  however,  was  firm;  he  persisted 
in  his  refusal ;  yet,  that  it  might  not 
create  ill  feeling,  he  gave  his  own  wife 
to   Hortensius,  and  when,  later,  Hor- 


68  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

tensius  was  gathered  to    his   fathers, 
remarried  the  widow. 

But  that  everyone  was  not  as  anx- 
ious for  matrimony  the  law  Pappea 
Poppoea  shows.  According  to  its 
canons  matrimony  was  an  obligation 
the  citizen  owed  to  the  state,  procrea- 
tion a  duty.  Whoso  at  twenty-five 
was  not  married,  whoso,  divorced  or 
widowed  did  not  remarry,  whoso, 
though  married,  was  without  children, 
was  regarded  as  an  enemy  and  de- 
clared incapable  of  inheriting  or  of 
serving  the  state.  To  this  law,  one  of 
Augustus'  stupidities  which  presently 
fell  into  disuse,  only  a  technical  ob- 
servance was  paid.  Men  married  just 
enough  to  gain  a  position  or  inherit  a 
legacy;  the  next  day  they  got  a  di- 
vorce. At  the  moment  of  need  a 
child  was  adopted ;  the  moment  passed, 
the  child  was  disowned.  But  if  the 
law  had  little  value,  at  least  it  shows 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  59 

that  virtue  was  infrequent,  and  it  is 
precisely  for  this  reason  that  the 
gossip  concerning  Tiberius  may  be 
treated  as  gossip  should;  he  differed, 
and  singularly  from  other  men. 

^^Ho  semfreamato  la  soli f aria  vita,^^ 
Petrarch,  referring  to  himself,  de- 
clared and,  Tiberius  might  have  said 
the  same  thing.  He  was  in  love  with 
solitude;  ill  with  efforts  for  the  un- 
attained;  sick  with  the  ingratitude  of 
man.  Presently  it  was  decided  that 
he  had  lived  long  enough.  He  was 
suffocated — beneath  a  mattress  at  that. 
Caesar  had  dreamed  of  a  universal 
monarchy  of  which  he  should  be 
king;  he  was  murdered.  That  dream 
was  also  Anthony's;  he  killed  himself. 
Cato  had  sought  the  restoration  of 
the  republic,  and  Brutus  the  attain- 
ment of  virtue;  both  committed 
suicide.  Under  the  empire  dreamers 
fared  ill.     Tiberius  was  a  dreamer. 


60  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

In  a  palace  where  a  curious  concep- 
tion of  the  love  of  Atalanta  and 
Meleager  was  said  to  figure  on  the 
walls,  there  was  a  door  on  which  was 
a  legend,  imitated  from  one  that  over- 
hung the  Theban  library  of  Osy- 
mandias — ^y/^?  latprwv,  Pharmacy  of 
the  Soul.  It  was  there  Tiberius 
dreamed. 

On  the  ivory  shelves  were  the 
philters  of  Parthenius,  labeled  De 
A  matoriis  A^ectionibus^  the  Sybaris 
of  Clitonymus,  the  ErotopcEgnia  of 
Laevius,  the  maxims  and  instructions 
of  Elephantis,  the  nine  books  of 
Sappho.  There  also  were  the  pathetic 
adventures  of  Odatis  and  Zariadres, 
which  Chares  of  Mitylene  had  given 
to  the  world;  the  astonishing  tales  of 
that  early  Cinderella,  Rhodopis;  and 
with  them  those  romances  of  Ionian 
nights  by  Aristides  of  Milet,  which 
Crassus  took  with  him  when  he  set 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  61 

out  to  subdue  the  Parthians,  and 
which,  found  in  the  booty,  were  read 
aloud  to  the  people  that  they  might 
judge  the  morals  of  a  nation  that  pre- 
tended to  rule  the  world. 

Moral,  certainl}'  they  were  not ;  but 
like  everything  else  which  came  from 
Greece,  they  were  the  work  of  a  mas- 
ter in  art.  Concerning  Aristides  of 
Milet  history  is  silent,  but  it  may  be 
safel}'  conjectured  that  his  life  differed 
from  that  of  his  heroes.  As  often  as 
not  the  man  who  sounds  the  cymbals 
to  the  proprieties  and  plays  the  flute 
to  ethereal  affection,  conceals  beneath 
obsequious  cant  the  stigmata  of  satis- 
fied vice.  It  is  he  who  in  vichy-water 
phrases  pays  to  virtue  the  tribute  of 
sin.  On  the  other  hand  a  tendency 
toward  eroticism  is  the  surest  indica- 
tion of  chastity.  It  is  continence  that 
makes  the  St.  Anthony.  In  the  blood 
of  the  chaste  cantharides  abound. 


62  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Whether  such  medicaments  areser- 
viceaWe  to  the  soul  is  a  different  mat- 
ter. Tiberius  had  other  drugs  on  the 
ivory  shelves  — magic  preparations  that 
transported  him  to  fabulous  fields. 
There  was  a  work  by  Hecatseus,  with 
which  he  could  visit  Hyperborea,  that 
land  where  happiness  was  a  birthright, 
inalienable  at  that;  yet  a  happiness  so 
sweet  that  it  must  have  been  cloying; 
for  the  people  who  enjoyed  it,  and  with 
it  the  appanage  of  limitless  life,  killed 
themselves  from  sheer  ennui.  Theo- 
pompus  disclosed  to  him  a  stranger 
vista — a  continent  beyond  the  ocean — 
one  where  there  were  immense  cities, 
and  where  two  rivers  flowed — the 
River  of  Pleasure  and  the  River  of 
Pain.  With  lambulus  he  discovered 
the  Fortunate  Isles,  where  there  were 
men  with  elastic  bones,  bifurcated 
tongues ;  men  who  never  married,  who 
worshipped  the  sun,  whose  life  was  an 


IMPERIAL   PURPLE.  63 

uninterrupted  delight,  and  who,  when 
overtaken  by  age,  lay  on  a  perfumed 
grass  that  produced  a  voluptuous 
death.  Evhemerus,  a  terrible  atheist, 
whose  Sacred  History  the  early  bishops 
wielded  against  polytheism  until 
they  discovered  it  was  double-edged, 
took  him  to  Panchaia,  an  island  where 
incense  grew;  where  property  was 
held  in  common;  where  there  was  but 
one  law — Justice,  yet  a  justice  differ- 
ent from  our  own,  one  which  Hugo 
must  have  intercepted  when  he  made 
an  entrancing  yet  enigmatical  appari- 
tion exclaim: 

"Tu  me  crois  la  Justice,  je  suis  la  Pitie." 

And  in  this  paradise,  where  nature 
laughed  the  seasons  through,  there 
was  a  temple,  and  before  it  a  column, 
about  which,  in  Panchaian  characters, 
ran  a  history  of  ancient  kings,  who,  to 
the  astonishment  of  the  tourist,  were 
found  to  be  none  other  than  the  gods 


64  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

whom  the  universe  adored,  and  who 
in  earHer  days  had  announced  them- 
selves divinities,  the  better  to  rule  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  man. 

With  other  guides  Tiberius  jour- 
neyed through  lands  where  dreams 
come  true.  Aristeas  of  Proconnesus 
led  him  among  the  Arimaspi,  a  curious 
people  who  passed  their  lives  fighting 
for  gold  with  griffons  in  the  dark. 
With  Isogonus  he  descended  the 
valley  of  Ismaus,  where  wild  men 
were,  whose  feet  turned  inwards.  In 
Albania  he  found  a  race  with  pink 
eyes  and  white  hair;  in  Sarmatia 
another  that  ate  only  on  alternate 
days.  Agatharcides  took  him  to 
Libya,  and  there  introduced  him  to 
the  Psyllians,  in  whose  bodies  was  a 
poison  deadly  to  serpents,  and  who,  to 
test  the  fidelity  of  their  wives,  placed 
their  children  in  the  presence  of 
snakes;  if  the  snakes  fled   they  knew 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  65 

their  wives  were  pure.  Callias  took 
him  further  yet,  to  the  home  of 
the  hermaphrodites;  Nymphodorus 
showed  him  a  race  of  fascinators  who 
used  enchanted  words.  With  Apol- 
lonides  he  encountered  women  who 
killed  with  their  eyes  those  on  whom 
they  looked  too  long.  Megasthenes 
guided  him  to  the  Astomians,  whose 
garments  were  the  down  of  feathers, 
and  who  lived  on  the  scent  of  the 
rose. 

In  his  cups  they  all  passed,  confus- 
edly, before  him;  the  hermaphrodites 
whispered  to  the  rose — breathers 
secrets  of  impossible  love;  the  grif- 
fons bore  to  him  women  with  magical 
eyes;  the  Albanians  danced  with 
elastic  feet;  he  heard  the  shrill  call  of 
the  Psyllians,  luring  the  serpents  to 
death;  the  column  of  Panchaia  un- 
veiled its  mysteries ;  the  Hyperboreans 
the  reason  of  their  fear  of  life,  and  on 


66  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  wings  of  the  chimera  he  set  out 
again  in  search  of  that  continent 
which  haunted  antiquity  and  which 
lay  beyond  the  sea. 


IV. 

THE    PURSUIT    OF    THE    IMPOSSIBLE. 


IV. 

THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IMPOSSIBLE. 

"Another  Phaethon  for  the  uni- 
verse," Tiberius  is  reported  to  have 
muttered,  as  he  gazed  at  his  nephew 
Caius,  nicknamed  Caligula,  who  was 
to  suffocate  him  with  a  mattress  and 
rule  in  his  stead. 

To  rule  is  hardly  the  expression. 
There  is  no  term  in  English  to  con- 
vey that  dominion  over  sea  and  sky 
which  a  Csesar  possessed,  and  which 
Caligula  was  the  earliest  to  understand. 
Augustus  was  the  first  magistrate  of 
Rome,  Tiberius  the  first  citizen. 
Caligula  was  the  first  emperor,  but  an 
emperor  hallucinated  by  the  enigma 
of  his  own  grandeur,  a  prince  for 
whose  sovereignty  the  world  was  too 
small. 


70  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Each  epoch  has  its  secret,  some- 
times puerile,  often  perplexing;  but  in 
its  maker  there  is  another  and  a  more 
interesting  one  yet.  Eliminate  Cali- 
gula, and  Nero,  Domitian,  Commo- 
dus,  Caracalla  and  Heliogabalus 
would  never  have  been.  It  was  he 
who  gave  them  both  raison  (Tetre 
and  incentive.  The  lives  of  all  of 
them  are  horrible,  yet  analyze  the  hor- 
rible and  you  find  the  sublime. 

Fancy  a  peak  piercing  the  heavens, 
shadowing  the  earth.  It  was  on  a 
peak  such  as  that  the  young  emperors 
of  old  Rome  balanced  themselves,  a 
precipice  on  either  side.  Did  they 
look  below,  a  vertigo  rose  to  meet 
them;  from  above  delirium  came, 
while  the  horizon,  though  it  hemmed 
the  limits  of  vision,  could  not  mark  the 
frontiers  of  their  dream.  In  addition 
there  was  the  exaltation  that  altitudes 
produce.      The    valleys    have    their 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  71 

imbeciles;  it  is  from  mountains  the 
poet  and  madman  come.  Caligula  was 
both,  sceptered  at  that;  and  with  what 
a  sceptre!  One  that  stretched  from 
the  Rhine  to  the  Euphrates,  domi- 
nated a  hundred  and  fifty  million  peo- 
ple; one  that  a  mattress  had  given  and 
a  knife  was  to  take  away;  a  sceptre 
that  lashed  the  earth,  threatened  the 
sky,  beckoned  planets  and  ravished 
the  divinity  of  the  divine. 

To  wield  such  a  sceptre  securely 
requires  grace,  no  doubt,  majesty  too, 
but  certainly  strength;  the  latter 
Caligula  possessed,  but  it  was  the 
feverish  strength  of  one  who  had 
fathomed  the  unfathomable,  and  who 
sought  to  make  its  depths  his  own. 
Caligula  was  haunted  by  the  intan- 
gible. His  sleep  was  a  communion 
with  Nature,  with  whom  he  believed 
himself  one.  At  times  the  Ocean 
talked      to     him;     at     others     the 


72  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Earth  had  secrets  which  it  wished  to 
tell.  Again  there  was  some  matter  of 
moment  which  he  must  mention  to 
the  day,  and  he  would  wander  out  in 
the  vast  galleries  of  the  palace  and 
invoke  the  Dawn,  bidding  it  come  and 
listen  to  his  speech.  The  day  was 
deaf,  but  there  was  the  moon,  and  he 
prayed  her  to  descend  and  share  his 
couch.  Luna  declined  to  be  the 
mistres  of  a  mortal;  to  seduce  her 
Caligula  determined  to  become  a  god. 
Nothing  was  easier.  An  emperor 
had  but  to  open  his  veins,  and  in  an 
hour  he  was  a  divinity.  But  the 
divinity  which  Caligula  desired  was 
not  of  that  kind.  He  wished  to  be  a 
god,  not  on  Ol3'mpus  alone,  but  on 
earth  as  well.  He  wished  to  be  a 
palpable,  tangible,  living  god;  one  that 
mortals  could  see,  which  was  more, 
he  knew,  than  could  be  said  of  the 
others.     The  mere  wish  was  sufficient 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  73 

— Rome  fell  at  his  feet.  The  patent 
of  divinity  was  in  the  genuflections  of 
a  nation.  At  once  he  had  a  temple, 
priests  and  flamens.  Inexhaustible 
Greece  was  sacked  again.  The 
statues  of  her  gods,  disembarked  at 
Rome,  were  decapitated,  and  on  them 
the  head  of  Caius  shone. 

Heretofore  his  dress  had  not  been 
Roman,  nor,  for  that  matter,  the  garb 
of  a  man.  On  his  wrists  were  brace- 
lets; about  his  shoulders  was  a  mantle 
made  bright  with  gems;  beneath  it 
was  a  tunic,  and  on  his  feet  were  the 
high  white  slippers  that  women  wore. 
But  when  the  god  came  the  costume 
changed.  One  day  he  was  Apollo, 
the  nimbus  on  his  curls,  the  Graces  at 
his  side;  the  next  he  was  Mercury, 
wings  at  his  heels,  the  caduceus  in 
his  hand;  again  he  was  Venus.  But 
it  was  as  Jupiter  Latialis,  armed  with 
the  thunderbolt  and  decorated  with  a 


74  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

great  gold  beard,  that  he  appeared  at 
his  best. 

The  role  was  very  real  to  him. 
After  the  fashion  of  Olympians  he 
became  frankly  incestuous,  seducing 
vestals,  his  sisters  too,  and  gaining 
in  boldness  with  each  metamorpho- 
sis, he  menaced  the  Capitoline  Jove. 
"Prove  your  power,"  he  cried  to  him, 
"or  fear  my  own!"  He  thundered  at 
him  with  machine-made  thunder,  with 
lightning  that  flashed  from  a  pan. 
"Kill  me,"  he  shouted,  "or  I  will  kill 
you!"  Jove,  ummoved,  must  have 
moved  his  assailant,  for  presently 
Caligula  lowered  his  voice,  whispered 
in  the  old  god's  ear,  questioned  him, 
meditated  on  his  answer,  grew  per- 
plexed, violent  again,  and  threatened 
to  send  him  home. 

These  interviews  humanized  him. 
He  forgot  the  moon  and  mingled  with 
men,  inviting  them  to  die.     The  invi- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  75 

tation  being  invariably  accepted,  he 
became  a  connoisseur  in  death,  an  ar- 
tist in  blood,  a  ruler  to  whom  cruelty 
was  not  merely  an  aid  to  government 
but  an  individual  pleasure,  and  there- 
with such  a  perfect  lover,  such  a 
charming  host! 

"Dear  heart,"  he  murmured  to  his 
mistress  Pryallis,  as  she  lay  one  night 
in  his  arms,  "I  think  I  will  have  you 
tortured  that  you  may  tell  me  why  I 
love  you  so."  But  of  that  the  girl 
saw  no  need.  She  either  knew  the 
reason  or  invented  one,  for  presently 
he  sighed  in  her  ear:  "And  to  think 
that  I  have  but  a  sign  to  make  and 
that  beautiful  head  of  yours  is  off!" 
Musings  of  this  description  were  so 
pleasurable  that  one  evening  he  ex- 
plained to  guests  whom  he  had  star- 
tled with  his  laughter,  that  it  was 
amusing  to  reflect  how  easily  he  could 
have  all  of  them  killed. 


76  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

But  even  to  a  god  life  is  not  an  un- 
mixed delight.  Caligula  had  his  lit- 
tle troubles.  About  him  there  had 
settled  a  disturbing  quiet.  Rome  was 
hushed,  the  world  was  very  still. 
There  was  not  so  much  as  an  earth- 
quake. The  reign  of  Augustus  had 
been  marked  by  the  defeat  of  Varus. 
Under  Tiberius  a  falling  amphithea- 
tre had  killed  a  multitude.  Caligula 
felt  that  through  sheer  felicity  his  own 
reign  might  be  forgot.  A  famine,  a 
pest,  an  absolute  defeat,  a  terrific  con- 
flagration— ^any  prodigious  calamity 
that  should  sweep  millions  away  and 
stamp  his  own  memory  immutably  on 
the  chronicles  of  time,  how  desirable 
it  were!  But  there  was  nothing. 
The  crops  had  never  been  more 
abundant;  apart  from  the  arenas  and 
the  prisons,  the  health  of  the  empire 
was  excellent;  on  the  frontiers  not  so 
much  as  the  rumor  of  an  insurrection 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  77 

could  be  heard,  and  Nero  was  yet  to 
come. 

Perplexed,  Caligula  reflected,  and 
presently  from  Baiae  to  Puzzoli,  over 
the  waters  of  the  bay,  he  galloped  on 
horseback,  the  cuirass  of  Alexander 
glittering  on  his  breast.  The  inter- 
vening miles  had  been  spanned  by  a 
bridge  of  ships  and  on  them  a  road 
had  been  built,  one  of  those  roads  for 
which  the  Romans  were  famous,  a 
road  like  the  Appian  Way,  in  earth 
and  stone,  bordered  by  inns,  by  pink 
arcades,  green  retreats,  forest  reaches, 
the  murmur  of  trickling  streams.  So 
many  ships  were  anchored  there  that 
through  the  unrepleted  granaries  the 
fear  of  famine  stalked.  Caligula, 
meanwhile,  tiis  guests  behind  him, 
made  cavalry  charges  across  the  sea, 
or  in  a  circus-chariot  held  the  ribbons, 
while  four  white  horses,  maddened  by 
swaying  lights,  bore  him  to  the  other 


78  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

shore.  At  night  the  entire  coast  was 
illuminated;  the  bridge  was  one  great 
festival,  brilliant  but  brief.  Caligula 
had  wearied  of  it  all.  At  a  signal 
the  multitude  of  guests  he  had  assem- 
bled there  were  tossed  into  the  sea. 
By  way  of  a  souvenir,  Tiberius, 
whom  he  murdered,  had  left  him  the 
immensity  of  his  treasure.  "I  must  be 
economical  or  Caesar,"  Caligula  re- 
flected, and  tipped  a  coachman  a  mil* 
lion,  rained  on  the  people  a  hail  of 
coin,  bathed  in  essences,  drank  pearls 
dissolved  in  wine,  set  before  his  guests 
loaves  of  silver,  gold  omelettes,  sau- 
sages of  gems;  sailed  to  the  hum  of 
harps  on  a  ship  that  had  porticoes, 
gardens,  baths,  bowers,  spangled  sails 
and  a  jewelled  prow ;  removed  a  moun- 
tain, and  put  a  palace  where  it  had 
been;  filled  in  a  valley  and  erected  a 
temple  on  the  top;  supplied  a  horse 
with  a  marble  home,  with  ivory  stalls, 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  79 

with  furniture  and  slaves;  contem- 
plated making  him  consul;  made  him 
a  host  instead,  one  that  in  his  own 
equine  name  invited  the  fashion  of 
Rome  to  sup  with  Incitatus. 

In  one  year  Tiberius'  legacy,  a 
sum  that  amounted  to  four  hundred 
million  of  our  money,  was  spent. 
Caligula  was  radiant;  he  had  achieved 
the  impossible;  he  was  a  bankrupt 
god,  an  emperor  without  a  copper. 
But  the  very  splendor  of  that  triumph 
demanded  a  climax.  If  Caligula  hes- 
itated, no  one  knew  it.  On  the  mor- 
row the  palace  of  the  Caesars  was 
turned  into  a  lupanar,  a  little  larger, 
a  little  handsomer  than  the  others, 
but  still  a  brothel,  one  of  which  the 
inmates  were  matrons  of  Rome  and 
the  keeper  Jupiter  Latialis. 

After  that,  seemingly,  there  was 
nothing  save  apotheosis.  But  Cali- 
gula, in  the  nick  of  time,  remembered 


80  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  ocean.  At  the  head  of  an  army 
he  crossed  Gaul,  attacked  it,  and  re- 
turned refreshed.  Decidedly  he  had 
not  exhausted  everything  yet.  He 
recalled  Tiberius'  policy,  and  abruptly 
the  world  was  filled  again  with  ac- 
cusers and  accused.  Gold  poured  in 
on  him,  the  earth  paid  him  tribute. 
In  a  vast  hall  he  danced  naked  on  the 
wealth  of  nations.  Once  more  he 
was  rich,  richer  than  ever;  there 
were  still  illusions  to  be  looted,  other 
dreams  to  be  pierced ;  yet,  even  as  he 
mused,  conspirators  were  abroad. 
He  loosed  his  pretorians.  "Had 
Rome  but  one  head!"  he  muttered. 
"Let  them  feel  themselves  die,"  he 
cried  to  his  ofhcers.  "Let  me  be 
hated,  but  let  me  be  feared." 

One  day,  as  he  was  returning  from 
the  theatre,  the  dagger  did  its  usual 
work.  Rome  had  lost  a  genius;  in 
his  place  there  came  an  ass. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  81 

There  is  a  verse  m  Greek  to  the 
effect  that  the  blessed  have  children 
in  three  months.  Livia  and  Augustus 
yvere  blessed  in  this  pleasant  fashicr-. 
Three  months  after  their  marriage  a 
child  was  born — a  miracle  which  sur- 
prised no  one  aware  of  their  previous 
intimacy.  The  child  became  a  man, 
and  the  father  of  Claud,  an  imbecile 
whom  the  pretorians,  after  Caligula's 
death,  found  in  a  closet,  shaking  with 
fright,  and  whom  for  their  own  pro- 
tection they  made  emperor  in  his 
stead. 

Caligula  had  been  frankly  adored; 
there  was  in  him  an  originality,  and 
with  it  a  grandeur  and  a  mad  magnifi- 
cence that  enthralled.  Then,  too,  he 
was  young,  and  at  his  hours  what  the 
French  call  charmeiir.  \i  at  times  he 
frightened,  alwa3's  he  dazzled.  Of 
course  he  was  adored;  the  prodigal 
emperors  always  were;  so  were  their 

6 


82  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

successors,  the  wicked  popes.  The 
virtue  and  moderation*,  which  we  of 
a  later  day  admire  so  much,  were 
not  entirely  appreciated  then.  Man 
was  still  too  near  to  nature  to  be 
aware  of  shame,  and  infantile  enough 
to  care  to  be  surprised.  In  that  was 
Caligula's  charm;  he  petted  his  peo- 
ple and  surprised  them  too.  Claud 
wearied.  Between  them  they  assimi- 
late every  contradiction,  and  in  their 
incoherences  explain  that  incompre- 
hensible chaos  which  was  Rome. 
Caligula  jeered  at  everybody,  every- 
body jeered  at  Claud. 

The  latter  was  a  fantastic,  vacillat- 
ing, abstracted,  well-meaning  and 
cowardly  tyrant,  issuing  edicts  in 
regard  to  the  proper  tarring  of  barrels, 
and  rendering  decisions  which  would 
insure  the  fortune  of  an  opera-bouffe; 
declaring  himself  to  be  of  the  opinion 
of  those  who  were  right ;  falling  asleep 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  83 

on  the  bench,  and  on  awakening 
announcing  that  he  gave  judgment 
in  favor  of  those  whose  reasons  were 
the  best;  slapped  in  the  face  by  an 
irritable  plaintiff;  held  down  by  main 
force  when  he  wanted  to  leave;  invit- 
ing to  supper  those  whom  he  had 
killed  before  breakfast;  answering  the 
mournful  salute  of  the  gladiators  with 
a  grotesque  yiz'^/e  vos — "  Be  it  well  too 
with  you,"  a  response,  parenthetically, 
which  the  gladiators  construed  as  a 
pardon  and  refused  to  fight;  dowering 
the  alphabet  with  three  new  letters 
which  lasted  no  longer  than  he  did; 
asserting  that  he  would  give  centen- 
nial games  as  often  as  he  saw  fit;  an 
emperor  whom  no  one  obeyed,  whose 
eunuchs  ruled  in  his  stead;  whose 
lackeys  dispensed  exiles,  death,  con- 
sulates and  crucifixions;  whose  valets 
insulted  the  senate,  insulted  Rome, 
insulted  the  sovereign  that  ruled  the 


84  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

world;  whose  people  shared  his  con- 
sort's couch;  a  slipshod  drunkard  in  a 
tattered  gown — such  was  the  gentle- 
man that  succeeded  Caligula  and  had 
Messalina  for  wife. 

It  were  curious  to  have  seen  that 
woman  as  Juvenal  did,  a  veil  over  her 
yellow  wig,  hunting  adventures 
through  the  streets  of  Rome,  prosti- 
tuting herself  in  the  ergastules,  while 
her  husband  in  the  Forum  censured 
the  dissoluteness  of  citizens.  And  it 
were  curious,  too,  to  understand 
whether  it  was  her  audacity  or  his 
stupidity  which  left  him  the  only  man 
in  Rome  unacquainted  with  the  pro- 
digious multiplicity  and  variety  of  her 
lovers.  History  has  its  secrets,  yet, 
in  connection  with  Messalina,  there  is 
one  that  historians  have  not  taken  the 
trouble  to  probe;  to  them  she  has 
been  an  imperial  strumpet,  a  hetaira 
on  a  throne.     Messalina  was  not  that. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  85 

At  heart  she  was  probably  no  better 
and  no  worse  than  any  other  lady  of 
the  land,  but  physically  she  was  a 
victim  of  nymphomania,  one  who  to- 
day would  be  put  through  a  course  of 
treatment,  instead  of  being  put  to 
death.  When  Claud  at  last  learned, 
not  the  truth,  but  certain  facts, 
namely,  that  some  of  her  lovers  were 
conspiring  to  get  rid  of  him,  he  was 
not  indignant;  he  was  frightened 
to  death.  The  conspirators  were 
promptly  disposed  of,  Messalina  with 
them.  Suetonius  says  that,  a  few 
days  later,  as  he  went  in  to  supper,  he 
asked  why  the  empress  did  not  ap- 
pear. 

Apart  from  the  malady  from  which 
she  suffered,  were  it  possible  to  find 
an  excuse  for  her  conduct,  the  excuse 
would, be  Claud.  The  purple  which 
made  Caligula  mad,  made  him  an 
idiot;  and  when  in  course  of  time  he 


86  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

was  served  with  a  succulent  poison, 
there  must  have  been  many  conjec- 
tures in  Rome  as  to  what  the  empire 
would  next  produce. 

The  empire  was  extremely  fecund, 
enormousl}^  vast.  About  Rome  ex- 
tended an  immense  circle  of  provinces 
and  cities  that  were  wholly  hers. 
Without  that  circle  was  another,  the 
sovereignty  exercised  over  vassals 
and  allies;  beyond  that,  beyond  the 
Rhine  on  one  side,  were  the  silenced 
Teutons;  beyond  the  Euphrates  on 
the  other,  the  hazardous  Parthians, 
while  remotely  to  the  north  there 
extended  the  enigmas  of  barbarism; 
to  the  south,  those  semi-fabulous 
regions  where  geography  ceased  to 
be. 

Little  by  little,  through  the  pa- 
tience of  a  people  that  felt  i'.self 
eternal,  this  immensity  had  been 
assimilated  and    fused.     A   few   for- 


IMPERIAL   PURPLE.  Si 

tresses  and  legions  on  the  frontiers,  a 
stretch  of  soldiery  at  any  spot  an  in- 
vasion might  be  feared;  a  little  tact, 
a  maternal  solicitude,  and  that  was 
all.  Rome  governed  unarmed,  or 
perhaps  it  might  be  more  exact  to 
say  she  did  not  govern  at  all;  she 
was  the  mistress  of  a  federation  of 
realms  and  republics  that  governed 
themselves,  in  whose  government  she 
was  content,  and  from  whom  she  ex- 
acted little,  tribute  merely,  and  obei- 
sance to  herself.  Her  strength  was 
not  in  the  sword;  the  lioness  roared 
rarely,  often  slept;  it  was  the  fear 
smaller  beasts  had  of  her  awakening 
that  made  them  docile;  once  aroused, 
those  indolent  paws  could  do  terrible 
work,  and  it  was  well  not  to  excite 
them.  When  the  Jews  threatened  to 
revolt,  Agrippa  warned  them :  "Look 
at  Rome;  look  at  her  well;  her  arms 
are  invisible,  her  troops  are  afar;  she 


88  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

rules,  not  by  them,  but  by  the  cer- 
tainty of  her  power.  If  you  rebel,  the 
invisible  sword  will  flash,  and  what 
can  you  do  against  Rome  armed, 
when  Rome  unarmed  frightens  the 
world?" 

The  argument  was  pertinent  and 
suggestive,  but  the  secret  of  Rome's 
ascendency  consisted  in  the  fact  that 
where  she  conquered  she  dwelt. 
Wherever  the  eagles  pounced,  Rome 
multiplied  herself  in  miniature.  In 
the  army  was  the  nation,  in  the  legion 
the  city.  Where  it  camped,  presto! 
a  judgment  seat  and  an  altar.  On 
the  morrow  there  was  a  forum;  in  a 
week  there  were  paved  avenues;  in  a 
fortnight,  temples,  porticoes;  in  a 
month  you  felt  yourself  at  home. 
Rome  built  with  a  magic  that  startled 
as  surely  as  the  glint  of  her  sword. 
Time  and  again  the  nations  whom 
Caesar  encountered  planned  to  elim- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  89 

inate  his  camp.  When  they  reached 
it  the  camp  had  vanished ;  in  its  place 
was  a  walled,  impregnable  town. 

As  the  standards  lowered  before 
that  town,  the  pomcerium  was  traced. 
Within  it  the  veteran  found  a  home, 
without  it  a  wife;  and,  the  famil}' 
established,  the  legion  that  had  con- 
quered the  soil  with  the  sword,  sub- 
sisted on  it  with  the  plow.  Presently 
there  were  priests  there,  aqueducts, 
baths,  theatres  and  games,  all  the 
marvel  of  imperial  elegance  and  vice. 
When  the  aborigine  wandered  that 
way,  his  seduction  was  swift. 

The  enemy  that  submitted  became 
a  subject,  not  a  slave.  Rome  com- 
manded only  the  free.  If  his  goods 
were  taxed,  his  goods  remained  his 
own,  his  personal  liberty  untram- 
meled.  His  land  had  become  part  of  a 
new  province,  it  is  true,  but  provided 
he  did  not  interest  himself  in  such  mat- 


90  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

ters  as  peace  and  war,  not  only  was 
he  free  to  manage  his  own  affairs,  but 
that  land,  were  it  at  the  uttermost 
end  of  the  earth,  might,  in  recompense 
of  his  fidelity,  come  to  be  regarded 
as  within  the  Italian  territory;  as  such, 
sacred,  inviolate,  free  from  taxes,  and 
he  a  citizen  of  Rome,  senator  even, 
emperor  ! 

Conquest  once  solidified,  the  rest 
was  easy.  Tattered  furs  were  replaced 
by  the  tunic  and  uncouth  idioms  by 
the  niceties  of  Latin  speech.  In  some 
cases,  where  the  speech  had  been 
beaten  in  with  the  hilt  of  the  sword, 
the  accent  was  apt  to  be  rough,  but  a 
generation,  two  at  most,  and  there 
were  sweethearts  and  swains  quoting 
Horace  in  the  moonlight,  naively  un- 
aware that  only  the  verse  of  the 
Greeks  could  pleasure  the  Roman  ear. 

Of  the  principalities  and  kingdoms 
that  of  their  own  wish  [a  wish  often 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  91 

suggested,  and  not  always  amicably 
either]  had  become  allies  of  Rome 
and  mingled  their  freedom  with  hers, 
nothing  worth  mentioning  was  re- 
quired; they  entered  into  an  alliance 
whereby  in  return  for  Rome's  patron- 
age and  protection  they  agreed  to 
have  a  proper  regard  for  the  dignity 
of  the  Roman  people  and  to  have  no 
other  friends  or  enemies  than  those 
that  were  Rome's — a  formula  ex- 
quisite in  the  civility  with  which  it 
exacted  the  renunciation  of  every  in- 
herent right,  "I  have  obeyed,"  wrote 
a  king  to  the  senate.  "I  have  obeyed 
your  deputy  as  I  would  have  obeyed 
a  god."  "And  you  have  done  wisely," 
the  senate  answered,  a  reply,  which, 
in  its  terseness,  tells  all. 

Diplomacy  and  the  plow,  such  were 
Rome's  methods.  As  for  herself  she 
fought,  she  did  not  till.  Italy,  devas- 
tated by  the  civil  wars,  was  unculti- 


92  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

vated,  cut  up  into  vast  unproductive 
estates.  From  one  end  to  the  other 
there  was  barely  a  trace  of  agricul- 
ture, not  a  sign  of  traffic.  You  met 
soldiers,  cooks,  petty  tradesmen,  glad- 
iators, philosophers,  patricians,  market 
gardeners,  lazzaroni  and  millionaires; 
the  merchant  and  the  farmer,  never. 
Rome's  resources  were  in  distant  com- 
mercial centers,  in  taxes  and  tribute; 
her  wealth  had  come  of  pillage  and 
exaction.  Save  her  strength,  she  had 
nothing  of  her  own.  Her  religion,  liter- 
ature, art,  philosophy,  luxury  and  cor- 
ruption, everything  had  come  from 
abroad.  In  Greece  were  her  artists;  in 
Africa,  Gaul  and  Spain,  her  agricultur- 
ists; in  Asia  her  artisans.  Her  own 
breasts  were  sterile.  When  she  gave 
birth  it  was  to  a  litter  of  monsters, 
sometimes  to  a  genius,  by  accident  to 
a  poet.  She  consumed,  she  did  not  pro- 
duce.   It  was  because  of  that  she  fell. 


V. 

NERO. 


V. 

NERO. 

"Save  a  monster,  what  can  you 
expect  from  Agrippina  and  myself?" 

It  was  Domitius,  Nero's  father, 
who  made  this  ingenious  remark. 
He  was  not  a  good  man;  he  was  not 
even  a  good-looking  man — a  brawling 
trickster  who,  in  spite  of  his  wealth, 
which  was  great,  appears  to  have 
pleased  no  one  as  thoroughly  as  he 
did  his  sister,  whom  he  pleased  too 
well.  But  such  capacity  for  wicked- 
ness as  he  possessed  paled  beside  that 
of  Agrippina,  who  poisoned  him  when 
Nero's  birth  insured  the  heritage  of 
his  wealth. 

In  all  its  galleries  history  has  no 
other  portrait  such  as  hers.  Cali- 
gula's   sister,     his    mistress    as    well, 


96  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

prostituted  by  him,  exiled  and  threat- 
ened with  death,  her  eyes  dazzled  and 
nerves  unstrung  by  the  impossibilities 
of  that  fabulous  reign,  it  was  not 
until  Claud,  her  uncle,  recalled  her 
and  Messalina  disappeared,  that  the 
empress  awoke.  She  too,  she  deter- 
mined, would  rule,  and  the  Jus  osculi 
aiding,  she  married  out  of  hand  that 
imbecile  uncle  of  hers,  on  whose  knee 
she  had  played  as  a  child. 

The  day  of  the  wedding  a  young 
patrician,  expelled  from  the  senate, 
killed  himself.  Agrippina  had  accused 
him  of  incest,  not  because  he  was  guilty, 
nor  yet  because  the  possibility  of  such 
a  sin  shocked  her,  but  because  he 
was  betrothed  to  Octavia,  a  slender 
maiden  with  blue,  pathetic  eyes,  who 
happened  to  be  Claud's  daughter,  and 
who,  Agrippina  determined,  should 
be  Nero's  wife.  Presently  Caligula's 
widow,   an    old    rival   of  her  own,  a 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  97 

lady  who  had  thought  she  would  like 
to  be  empress  twice,  and  whom 
Claud  had  eyed  grotesquely,  was  dis- 
encumbered of  three  million  worth  of 
emeralds,  with  which  she  heightened 
her  beauty,  and  told  very  civilly  that 
it  was  time  to  die.  So  too  disap- 
peared a  Calpurina,  a  Lepida;  women 
young,  rich,  handsome,  impure,  and 
as  such  dangerous  to  Agrippina's 
peace  of  mind.  The  legality  of  her 
crimes  was  so  absolute  that  the  mere 
ownership  of  an  enviable  object  was 
a  cause  for  death.  A  senator 
had  a  villa  which  pleased  her;  he  was 
invited  to  die.  A  knight  had  a  pair 
of  those  odorous  murrhine  vases, 
which  Pompey  had  found  in  Armenia, 
and  which  on  their  first  appearance 
set  Rome  wild;  he,  too,  was  invited 
to  die. 

But,    though    Agrippina    dealt     in 
death,    she    dealt    in    seductions    too. 


98  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Rome,  that  had  adored  CaHgula, 
promptly  fell  under  his  sister's  sway. 
There  was  a  splendor  in  her  eyes, 
which  so  many  crimes  had  lit;  in  her 
carriage  there  was  such  majesty,  the 
pomp  with  which  she  surrounded  her- 
self was  so  magnificent,  that  Rome, 
enthralled,  applauded.  Beyond,  on 
the  Rhine,  a  city  which  is  to-day 
Cologne,  rose  in  honor  of  her  sover- 
eignty. To  her  wishes  the  senate 
was  subservient,  to  her  indiscretions 
blind.  Claud,  who  meanwhile  had 
been  wholly  sightless,  suddenly  showed 
signs  of  discernment.  A  woman, 
charged  with  illicit  commerce, 
was  brought  to  his  tribunal.  He 
condemed  her,  of  course.  "In  my 
case,"  he  explained,  "matrimony  has 
not  been  successful,  but  the  fate  that 
destined  me  to  marry  impure  women 
destined  me  also  to  punish  them."  It 
was  then  that  Agrippina  ordered  of 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  99 

Locusta  that  famous  stew  of  poison 
and  mushrooms,  which  Nero,  in  allu- 
sion to  Claud's  apotheosis,  called  the 
food  of  the  gods.  The  fate  that  des- 
tined Claud  to  marry  Agrippina  des- 
tined her  to  kill  him. 

It  was  under  her  care,  between  a 
barber  and  a  ballerine,  amid  the 
shamelessness  of  his  stepfather's  place, 
where  any  day  he  could  have  seen  his 
mother  beckon  indolently  to  a  centu- 
rion and  pointing  to  some  lover  who 
had  ceased  to  please,  make  the  gesture 
which  signified  Death,  that  the  young 
Enobarbus — Nero,  as  he  subsequently 
called  himself — was  trained  for  the 
throne. 

He  had  entered  the  world  like  a 
tiger  cub,  feet  first;  a  circumstance 
which  is  said  to  have  disturbed  his 
mother,  and  well  it  might.  During 
his  adolescence  that  lady  made  hei 
self  feared.     He   was    but    seventeen 


100  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

when  the  pretorians  called  upon  him 
to  rule  the  world;  and  at  the  time  an 
ingenuous  lad,  one  who  blushed  like 
Lalage,  very  readily,  particularly  at 
the  title  of  Father  of  the  Country, 
which  the  senate  was  anxious  to  give 
him;  endowed  with  excellent  instincts, 
which  he  had  got  no  one  knew  whence ; 
a  trifle  pefi^  mattre.,  perhaps,  perfum- 
ing the  soles  of  his  feet,  and  careful 
about  the  arrangement  of  his  yellow 
curls,  but  withal  generous,  modest, 
sympathetic — in  short,  a  flower  in  a 
cesspool,  a  youth  not  over  well-fitted 
to  reign.  But  his  mother  was  there; 
as  he  developed  so  did  his  fear  of  her, 
to  such  proportions  even  that  he  gave 
certain  orders,  and  his  mother  was 
killed.  That  duel  between  mother 
and  son,  terrible  in  its  intensity  and 
unnameable  horror,  even  the  Borgias 
could  not  surpass.  Tacitus  has  told 
it,  dramatically,  as  was  his  wont,  but 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  101 

he  told  it  in  Latin,    in  which  tongue 
it  had  best  remain. 

At  that  time  the  ingenuous  lad  had 
disappeared.  The  cub  was  full-grown. 
Besides,  he  had  tasted  blood.  Octa- 
via,  the  slender  maiden,  who  with  her 
brother,  Britannicus,  and  her  sister, 
Antonia,  had  been  his  playmates;  who 
was  almost  his  own  sister;  whose  ear- 
liest memories  interlinked  with  his, 
and  who  had  become  his  wife,  had 
been  put  to  death;  not  that  she  had 
failed  to  please,  but  because  a  lady, 
Sabina  Poppcea,  who,  Tacitus  says, 
lacked  nothing  except  virtue,  had  de- 
clined to  be  his  mistress.  At  the 
time  Sabina  was  married.  But 
divorce  w^as  easy.  Sabina  got  one  at 
the  bar;  Nero  with  the  axe.  The 
twain  were  then  united.  Nero  seems 
to  have  loved  her  greatly,  a  fact,  as 
Suetonius  puts  it,  which  did  not  pre- 
vent him  from  kicking  her  to  death. 


102  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Already  he  had  poisoned  Britannicus, 
and  with  Octavia  decapitated  and 
Agrippina  gone,  of  the  imperial  house 
there  remained  but  Antonia  and  him- 
self. The  latter  he  invited  to  marry 
him;  she  declined.  He  invited  her  to 
die.  He  was  then  alone,  the  last  of 
his  race.  Monsters  never  engender. 
A  thinker  who  passed  that  way 
thought  him  right  to  have  killed  his 
mother;  her  crime  was  in  giving  him 
birth. 

Therewith  he  was  popular;  more 
so  even  than  Caligula,  who  was  a  poet, 
and  as  such  apart  from  the  crowd, 
while  Nero  was  frankly  canaille — well- 
meaning  at  that — which  Caligula 
never  was.  During  the  early  years 
of  his  reign  he  could  not  do  good 
enough.  The  gladiators  were  not 
permitted  to  die;  he  would  have  no 
shedding  of  blood;  the  smell  of  it  was 
distasteful.     He    would    listen    to    no 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  103 

denunciations ;  when  a  decree  of  death 
was  brought  to  him  to  sign,  he  re- 
gretted that  he  knew  how  to  write. 
Rome  had  never  seen  a  gentler  prince, 
nor  yet  one  more  splendidly  lavish. 
The  people  had  not  only  the  necessities 
of  life,  but  the  luxuries,  the  superflui- 
ties, too.  For  days  and  da3's  in  the 
Forum  there  was  an  incessant  shower 
of  tickets  that  were  exchangeable,  not 
for  bread  or  trivial  sums,  but  for  gems, 
pictures,  slaves,  fortunes,  ships,  villas 
and  estates.  The  creator  of  that 
shower  was  bound  to  be  adored. 

It  was  that,  no  doubt,  which  awoke 
him.  A  city  like  Rome,  one  that  had 
over  a  million  inhabitants,  could  make 
a  terrific  noise,  and  when  that  noise 
was  applause,  the  recipient  found  it 
heady.  Nero  got  drunk  on  popularity, 
and  heredity  aiding  where  the  prince 
had  been  emerged  the  cad,  a  foseur 
that   bored,  a  beast  that  disgusted,  a 


104  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

caricature  of  the  impossible  in  a  crim- 
son frame. 

"What  an  artist  the  world  is  to 
lose!"  he  exclaimed  as  he  died; 
and  artist  he  was,  but  in  the  Roman 
sense;  one  that  enveloped  in  the  same 
contempt  the  musician,  acrobat  and 
actor;  one  that  branded  every  public 
performer  with  an  appellation  which 
even  yet  has  not  been  rehabilitated. 
It  was  the  artist  that  played  the  flute 
while  gladiators  died  and  lovers  em- 
braced; it  was  the  artist  that  enter- 
tained the  crowd. 

As  an  artist  Nero  would  have  made 
the  fortune  of  a  dozen  concert-halls. 
Fancy  the  attraction — an  emperor 
before  the  footlights;  but  fancy  the 
boredom  also.  The  joy  at  the  an- 
nouncement of  his  first  appearance  was 
so  great  that  thanks  were  offered  to 
the  gods;  and  the  verses  he  was  to 
sing,  graven  in  gold,  were  dedicated 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  105 

to  the  Capitoline  Jove.  The  joy  was 
brief.  The  exits  of  the  theatre  were 
closed.  It  was  treason  to  attempt  to 
leave.  People  pretended  to  be  dead, 
in  order  to  be  carried  out,  and  well 
they  might.  The  star  was  a  fat  man 
with  a  husky  tenorino  voice,  who  sang 
drunk  and  half-naked  to  a  protecting 
claque  of  ten  thousand  hands. 

But  it  was  in  the  circus  that  Nero 
was  at  his  best;  there,  no  matter 
though  he  were  last  in  the  race,  it 
was  to  him  the  palm  was  awarded,  or 
rather  it  was  he  that  awarded  the 
palm  to  himself,  and  then  quite  mag- 
nificently shouted,  "Nero,  Caesar,  vic- 
tor in  the  race,  gives  his  crown  to 
the  People  of  Rome!" 

On  the  stage  he  had  no  rivals,  and 
b}'  chance  did  one  appear,  he  was 
invited  to  die.  In  that  respect  he 
was  artistically  susceptible.  When 
he    turned    acrobat,   the    statues    of 


106  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

former  victors  were  tossed  in  the 
latrinse.  Yet,  as  competitors  were 
needed,  and  moreover,  all  emperor 
that  he  was,  as  he,  singly,  could  fill 
neither  a  stage  nor  a  track,  it  was  the 
nobility  of  Rome  that  he  ordered  to 
appear  with  him.  The  nobility  was 
willing  enough  to  appear,  only  there 
were  few  that  cared  to  be  forced,  and 
for  this  command  the  unforgiving 
nobility  never  forgave  him.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  proletariat  loved  him 
all  the  better.  What  greater  salve 
could  it  have  than  the  sight  of  the 
conquerors  of  the  world  entertaining 
the  conquered,  lords  amusing  their 
lackeys  } 

Greece  meanwhile  sent  him  crowns 
and  prayers;  crowns  for  anticipated 
victories,  prayers  that  he  would  come 
and  win  them.  Homage  so  delicate 
was  not  to  be  disdained.  Nero  set 
forth,  an  army  at   his  heels;  a  legion 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  107 

of  claqueurs,  a  phalanx  of  musicians, 
cohorts  of  comedians,  and  with  these 
for  retinue,  through  sacred  groves  that 
Homer  knew,  through  intervales 
which  Hesiod  sang,  through  a  year  of 
festivals  he  wandered,  always  victori- 
ous. It  was  he  who  conquered  at 
Olympia;  it  was  he  who  conquered 
at  Corinth.  No  one  could  withstand 
him.  Alone  in  history  he  won  in 
every  game,  and  with  eighteen  hun- 
dred crowns  as  trophies  of  war  he  re- 
peated Caesar's  triumph.  In  a  robe 
immaterial  as  a  moonbeam,  the 
Olympian  wreath  on  his  curls,  the 
Isthmian  laurel  in  his  hand,  his  army 
behind  him,  the  clown  that  was  em- 
peror entered  Rome.  Victims  were 
immolated  as  he  passed,  the  Via  Sacra 
was  strewn  with  saffron,  the  day 
was  rent  with  acclaiming  shouts. 
Throughout  the  empire  sacrifices 
were  ordered.     Old  people  that  lived 


108  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

in  the  country  fancied  him,  Philostra- 
tus  says,  the  conqueror  of  new  na- 
tions, and  sacrificed  with  delight. 

But  if  as  artist  he  bored  everybody 
to  death,  he  was  yet  an  admirable 
impresario.  The  spectacles  he  gave 
were  unique.  At  one  which  was  held 
in  the  Taurian  amphitheatre  it  must 
have  been  delightful  to  assist.  Fancy 
eighty  thousand  people  on  ascending 
galleries,  protected  from  the  sun  by  a 
canopy  of  spangled  silk;  an  arena 
three  acres  large  carpeted  with  sand, 
cinnabar  and  borax,  and  in  that  arena 
death  in  every  form,  on  those  galleries 
colossal  delight. 

The  lowest  galler}',  immediately 
above  the  arena,  was  a  wide  terrace 
where  the  senate  sat.  There  were 
the  dignitaries  of  the  empire,  and 
with  them  priests  in  their  sacerdotal 
robes;  vestals  in  linen,  their  hair 
arranged  in  the  six  braids  that  were 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  109 

symbolic  of  virginity;  swarms  of 
oriental  princes,  rainbows  of  foreign 
ambassadors;  and  in  the  centre,  the 
imperial  pulvinar,  an  enclosed  pavil- 
ion, in  which  Nero  lounged,  a 
mignon  at  his  feet. 

In  the  gallery  above  were  the 
necklaced  knights,  their  tunics  bor- 
dered with  the  augusticlave,  their 
deep-blue  cloaks  fastened  to  the 
shoulder;  and  there,  too,  in  their  wide 
white  togas,  were  the  citizens  of 
Rome. 

Still  higher  the  people  sat.  In  the 
topmost  gallery  were  the  women,  and 
in  a  separate  enclosure  a  thousand 
musicians  answered  the  cries  of  the 
multitude  with  the  blare  and  the 
laugh  of  brass. 

Beneath  the  terraces,  behind  the 
barred  doors  that  punctuated  the 
marble  wall  which  circled  the  arena, 
were   Mauritian    panthers    that    had 


110  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

been  entrapped  with  rotten  meat; 
hippopotami  from  Sa'is,  lured  by  the 
smell  of  carrots  into  pits;  the  rhinoc- 
eros of  Gaul,  taken  with  the  net;  lions, 
lassoed  in  the  deserts;  Lucanian 
bears,  Spanish  bulls;  and,  in  remoter 
dens,  men,  unarmed,  that  waited. 

By  way  of  foretaste  for  better 
things,  a  handful  of  criminals,  local 
desperadoes,  an  impertinent  slave,  a 
machinist,  who  in  a  theatre  the  night 
before  had  missed  an  effect — these, 
together  with  a  negligent  usher,  were 
tossed  one  after  the  other  naked  into 
the  ring,  and  bound  to  a  scaffold  that 
surmounted  a  miniature  hill.  At  a 
signal  the  scaffold  fell,  the  hill  crum- 
bled, and  from  it  a  few  hyenas  issued, 
who  indolently  devoured  their  prey. 

With  this  for  prelude,  the  gods 
avenged  and  justice  appeased,  a 
rhinoceros  ambled  that  way,  stimu- 
lated from  behind   by  the  point  of  a 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  Ill 

spear;  and  in  a  moment  the  hyenas 
were  disemboweled,  their  legs  quiv- 
ering in  the  air.  Throughout  the 
arena  other  beasts,  tied  together  with 
long  cords,  quarreled  in  couples; 
there  was  the  bellow  of  bulls,  and  the 
moan  of  leopards  tearing  at  their 
flesh,  a  flight  of  stags,  and  the  long, 
clean  spring  of  the  panther. 

Presently  the  arena  was  cleared, 
the  sand  re-raked  and  the  Bestiarii 
advanced — Sarmatians,  nourished  on 
mares'  milk;  Sicambrians,  their  hair 
done  up  in  chignons;  horsemen  from 
Thessaly,  Ethiopian  warriors,  Par- 
thian archers,  huntsmen  from  the 
steppes,  their  different  idioms  uniting 
in  a  single  cry — "Cgesar,  we  salute 
you."  The  sunlight,  filtering  through 
the  spangled  canopy,  chequered  their 
tunics  with  burning  spots,  danced  on 
their  spears  and  helmets,  dazzled  the 
spectators'    eyes.       From  above  de- 


112  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

scended  the  caresses  of  flutes;  the  air 
was  sweet  with  perfumes,  aHve  with 
multicolored  motes;  the  terraces  were 
parterres  of  blending  hues,  and  into 
that  splendor  a  hundred  lions,  their 
tasseled  tails  sweeping  the  sand, 
entered  obliquely. 

The  mob  of  the  Bestiarii  had  gone. 
In  the  middle  of  the  arena,  a  band  of 
Ethiopians,  armed  with  arrows, 
knives  and  spears,  knelt,  their  oiled 
black  breasts  uncovered. 

Leisurely  the  lions  turned  their 
huge,  intrepid  heads;  to  their  jowls 
wide  creases  came.  There  was  a 
glitter  of  fangs,  a  shiver  that  moved 
the  mane,  a  flight  of  arrows,  mount- 
ing murmurs,  the  crouch  of  beasts 
preparing  to  spring,  a  deafening  roar, 
and,  abruptly,  a  tumultuous  mass,  the 
suddenness  of  knives,  the  snap  of 
bones,  the  cry  of  the  agonized,  the 
fury  of  beasts  transfixed,  the  shrieks 


IMPERIAL   PURPLE.  113 

of  the  mangled,  a  combat  hand  to 
fang,  from  which  Hons  fell  back,  their 
jaws  torn  asunder,  while  others  re- 
treated, a  black  body  swaying  be- 
tween their  terrible  teeth,  and,  insen- 
sibly, a  descending  quiet. 

At  once  there  was  an  eruption 
of  bellowing  elephants,  painted  and 
trained  for  slaughter,  that  trampled 
on  wounded  and  dead.  At  a  call 
from  a  keeper  the  elephants  dis- 
appeared. There' was  a  rush  of  mules 
and  slaves;  the  carcasses  and  corpses 
vanished,  the  toilet  of  the  ring  was 
made;  and  then  came  a  plunge  of 
bulls,  mists  of  vapor  about  their  long, 
straight  horns,  their  anxious  eyes 
dilated.  Beyond  was  a  troop  of 
Thessalians.  For  a  moment  the  bulls 
snorted,  pawing  the  sand  with  their 
fore-feet,  as  though  trying  to  remem- 
ber what  they  were  doing  there.  Yet 
instantly  they  seemed   to  know,  and 

8 


114  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

with  lowered  heads,  they  plunged  on 
the  point  of  spears.  But  no  matter, 
horses  went  down  by  the  hundred; 
and  as  the  bulls  tired  of  goring  the 
dead,  they  fought  each  other;  fought 
rancorously,  fought  until  weariness 
overtook  them,  and  the  surviving 
Thessalians  leaped  on  their  backs, 
twisted  their  horns,  and  threw  them 
down,  a  sword  through  their  throb- 
bing throats. 

Successively  the  arena  was  occupied 
by  bears,  by  panthers,  by  dogs  trained 
for  the  chase,  by  hunters  and  hunted. 
But  the  episode  of  the  morning  was 
a  dash  of  wild  elephants,  attacked  on 
either  side;  a  moment  of  sheer  delight, 
in  which  the  hunters  were  tossed  up 
on  the  terraces,  tossed  back  again  by 
the  spectators,  and  trampled  to  death. 

With  that  for  bouquet  the  first  part 
of  the  performance  was  at  an  end. 
By  way  of   interlude,   the   ring   was 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  115 

peopled  with  acrobats,  who  flew  up 
in  the  air  like  birds,  formed  pyramids 
together,  on  the  top  of  which  little 
boys  swung  and  smiled.  There  was 
a  troop  of  trained  lions,  their  manes 
gilded,  that  walked  on  tight-ropes, 
wrote  obscenities  in  Greek,  and  danced 
to  cymbals  which  one  of  them  played. 
There  were  geese-fights,  wonderful 
combats  between  dwarfs  and  women; 
a  chariot  race,  in  which  bulls,  painted 
white,  held  the  reins,  standing  upright 
while  drawn  at  full  speed;  a  chase  of 
ostriches,  and  feats  of  kaufe  ecole  on 
zebras  from  Madagascar. 

The  interlude  at  an  end,  the  sand 
was  re-raked,  and  preceded  by  the 
pomp  of  lictors,  interminable  files  of 
gladiators  entered,  holding  their  knives 
to  Nero  that  he  might  see  that  they 
were  sharp.  It  was  then  the  eyes  of 
the  vestals  lighted;  artistic  death  was 
their  chiefest  joy,  and  in  a  moment, 


116  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

when  the  spectacle  began  and  the  first 
gladiator  fell,  above  the  din  you  could 
hear  their  cry  ^^I/zc  habet!^^  and 
watch  their  delicate  thumbs  reverse. 

There  was  no  cowardice  in  that 
arena.  If  by  chance  any  hesitation 
were  discernible,  instantly  there  were 
hot  irons,  the  sear  of  which  revivi- 
fied courage  at  once.  But  that  was 
rare.  The  gladiators  fought  for  ap- 
plause, for  liberty,  for  death;  fought 
manfully,  skillfully,  terribly,  too,  and 
received  the  point  of  the  sword  or  the 
palm  of  the  victor,  their  expression 
unchanged,  the  face  unmoved. 
Among  them,  some  provided  with  a 
net  and  prodigiously  agile,  pursued 
their  adversaries  hither  and  thither, 
trying  to  entangle  them  first  and  kill 
them  later.  Others,  protected  by 
oblong  shields  and  armed  with  short, 
sharp  swords,  fought  hand-to-hand. 
There  were  still  others,  mailed  horse- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  117 

men,  who  fought  with  the  lance, 
and  charioteers  that  dealt  death  from 
high  Briton  cars. 

As  a  spectacle  it  was  unique;  one 
that  the  Romans,  or  more  exactly, 
their  predecessors,  the  Etruscans,  had 
devised  to  train  their  children  for 
war  and  allay  the  fear  of  blood.  It 
had  been  serviceable,  indeed,  and 
though  the  need  of  it  had  gone,  still 
the  institution  endured,  and  in  endur- 
ing constituted  the  chief  delight  of 
the  vestals  and  of  Rome.  By  means 
of  it  a  bankrupt  became  consul  and 
an  emperor  beloved.  It  had  stayed 
revolutions,  it  was  the  tax  of  the  pro- 
letariat on  the  rich.  Silver  and  bread 
were  for  the  individual,  but  spectacles 
were  for  the  crowd. 

During  the  pauses  of  the  combats 
the  dead  were  removed  by  men 
masked  as  Mercury,  god  of  hell;  red 
irons,  that  others,  masked  as  Charon, 


118  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

bore,  being  first  applied  as  safeguard 
against  swoon  or  fraud.  And  when, 
to  the  kisses  of  flutes,  the  last  palm 
had  been  awarded,  the  last  death 
acclaimed,  a  ballet  was  given;  that  of 
Paris  and  Venus,  which  Apuleius  has 
described  so  well,  and  for  afterpiece 
the  romance  of  Pasiphae  and  the 
bull.  Then,  as  night  descended,  so 
did  torches,  too;  the  arena  was 
strewn  with  vermilion;  tables  were 
set,  and  to  the  incitement  of  crotals, 
Lydians  danced  before  the  multitude, 
toasting  the  last  act  of  that  wonderful 
day. 

It  was  with  such  magnificence  that 
Nero  showed  the  impresario's  skill, 
the  politician's  adroitness.  Where 
the  artist,  which  he  claimed  to  be, 
really  appeared,  was  in  the  refurbish- 
ing of  Rome. 

In  spite  of  Augustus'  boast,  the 
city  was  not  by  any  means  of  marble. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  119 

It  was  filled  with  crooked  little 
streets,  with  the  atrocities  of  the 
Tarquins,  with  houses  unsightly  and 
perilous,  with  the  moss  and  dust  of 
ages;  it  compared  with  Alexandria 
as  London  compares  with  Paris;  it 
had  a  splendor  of  its  own,  but  a 
splendor  that  could  be  heightened. 

Whether  the  conflagration  which 
occurred  at  that  time  was  the  result 
of  accident  or  design  is  uncertain 
and  in  any  event  immaterial. 
Tacitus  says  that  when  it  began  Nero 
was  at  Antium,  in  which  case  he 
must  have  hastened  to  return,  for  ad- 
mitting that  he  did  not  originate  the 
fire,  it  is  a  matter  of  agreement  that 
he  collaborated  in  it.  In  quarters 
where  it  showed  symptoms  of  weak- 
ness it  was  by  his  orders  coaxed  to 
new  strength;  colossal  stone  build- 
ings, on  which  it  had  little  effect, 
were  battered  down  with  catapults. 


120  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Fire  is  a  perfect  poet.  No  de- 
signer ever  imagined  the  surprises  it 
creates,  and  when,  at  the  end  of  the 
week  three-fourths  of  the  city  was  in 
ruins,  the  beauty  that  reigned  there 
must  have  been  subHme.  That  it  in- 
spired Nero  is  presumable.  The 
palace  on  the  Palatine,  which 
Tiberius  embellished  and  Caligula 
enlarged,  had  gone;  in  its  place  rose 
another,  aflame  with  gold.  Before  it 
Neropolis  extended,  a  city  of  tri- 
umphal arches,  enchanted  temples, 
royal  dwellings,  shimmering  porti- 
coes, glittering  roofs,  and  wide,  hos- 
pitable streets.  It  was  fair  to  the 
eye,  purely  Greek;  and  on  its  heart, 
from  the  Circus  Maximus  to  the 
Forum's  edge,  the  new  and  gigantic 
palace  shone.  Before  it  was  a  lake,  a 
part  of  which  Vespasian  drained  and 
replaced  with  an  amphitheatre  that 
covered   eight     acres.      About    that 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  121 

lake  were  separate  edifices  that 
formed  a  city  in  themselves;  between 
them  and  the  palace,  a  statue  of  Nero 
in  gold  and  silver  mounted  precipi- 
tately a  hundred  and  twenty  feet — a 
statue  which  it  took  twenty-four  ele- 
phants to  move.  About  it  were 
green  savannahs,  forest  reaches,  the 
call  of  bird  and  deer,  while  in  the  dis- 
tance, fronted  by  a  stretch  of  columns 
a  mile  in  length,  the  palace  stood — a 
palace  so  ineffably  charming  that  on 
the  day  of  reckoning  may  it  outbal- 
ance a  few  of  his  sins.  Even  the  cel- 
lars were  frescoed.  The  baths  were 
quite  comfortable;  you  had  waters 
salt  or  sulphurous  at  will.  The  diur 
ing  halls  had  ivory  ceilings  from 
which  flowers  fell,  and  wainscots  that 
changed  at  each  service.  The  walls 
were  alive  with  the  glisten  of  gems, 
with  marbles  rarer  than  jewels.  In 
one  hall  was   a  dome  of  sapphire,  a 


122  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

floor  of  malachite,  crystal  columns 
and  red-gold  walls. 

"At  last,"  Nero  murmured,  "I  am 
lodged  like  a  man." 

No  doubt.  Yet  in  a  mirror  he 
would  have  seen  a  bloated  beast  in  a 
flowered  gown,  the  hair  done  up  in  a 
chignon,  the  skin  covered  with  erup- 
tions, the  eyes  circled  and  yellow; 
a  woman  who  had  hours  when  she 
imitated  a  virgin  at  bay,  others  when 
she  was  wife,  still  others  when  she 
expected  to  be  a  mother,  and  that 
woman,  a  senatorial  patent  of  divinity 
aiding,  was  god — Apollo's  peer,  im- 
perator,  chief  of  the  army,  pontifix 
maximus,  master  of  the  world,  with 
the  incontestible  right  of  life  and  death 
over  every  being  in  the  dominions. 

It  had  taken  the  fresh-faced  lad  who 
blushed  so  readily,  just  fourteen  years 
to  effect  that  change.  Did  he  regret 
it?     And  what  should  Nero  regret.? 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  123 

Nothing,  perhaps,  save  that  at  the 
moment  when  he  declared  himself  to 
be  lodged  like  a  man,  he  had  not 
killed  himself  like  one.  But  of  that 
he  was  incapable.  Had  he  known 
what  the  future  held,  possibly  he 
might  have  imitated  that  apotheosis 
of  vulgarity  in  which  Sardanapalus 
eclipsed  himself,  but  never  could  he 
have  died  with  the  good  breeding 
and  philosophy  of  Cato,  for  neither 
good  breeding  nor  philosophy  was  in 
him.  Nero  killed  himself  like  a  cow- 
ard, yet  that  he  did  kill  himself,  in  no 
matter  what  fashion,  is  one  of  the  few 
things  that  can  be  said  in  his  favor. 

Those  days  differed  from  ours. 
There  were  circumstances  in  which 
suicide  was  regarded  as  the  simplest 
of  duties.  Nero  did  his  duty,  but  not 
until  he  was  forced  to  it,  and  even  then 
not  until  he  had  been  asked  several 
times  whether  it  was  so  hard  to  die. 


124  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

The  empire  had  wearied  of  him.  In 
Neropolis  his  popularity  had  gone  as 
popularity  ever  does;  the  conflagration 
had  killed  it. 

Even  as  he  wandered,  lyre  in 
hand,  a  train  of  Lesbians  and  ped- 
erasts at  his  heels,  through  those  halls 
which  had  risen  on  the  ruins,  and  which 
inexhaustible  Greece  had  furnished 
with  a  fresh  crop  of  white  immortals 
the  world  rebelled.  Afar  on  the  out- 
skirts of  civilization  a  vassal,  ashamed 
of  his  vassalage,  declared  war,  not 
against  Rome,  but  against  an  emperor 
that  played  the  flute.  In  Spain,  in 
Gaul,  the  legions  were  choosing  other 
chiefs.  The  provinces,  depleted  by 
imperial  exactions,  outwearied  by  the 
increasing  number  of  accusers,  whose 
accusations  impoverishing  them 
served  only  to  multiply  the  prodigal- 
ities of  their  Caesar,  revolted. 

Suddenly  Nero  found  himself  alone. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  126 

As  the  advancing  rumor  of  rebellion 
reached  him,  he  thought  of  flight; 
there  was  no  one  that  would  accom- 
pany him.  He  called  to  the  preto- 
rians ;  they  would  not  hear.  Through 
the  immensity  of  his  palace  he  sought 
one  friend.  The  doors  would  not 
open.  He  returned  to  his  apartment; 
the  guards  had  gone.  Then  terror 
siezed  him.  He  was  afraid  to  die, 
afraid  to  live,  afraid  of  his  solitude, 
afraid  of  Rome,  afraid  of  himself;  but 
what  frightened  him  most  was  that 
everyone  had  lost  their  fear  of  him. 
It  was  time  to  go,  and  a  slave  aiding, 
he  escaped  in  disguise  from  Rome, 
and  killed  himself,  reluctantly,  in  a 
hovel. 

'■'' Quail's  artifex  ■pereoP'^  he  is 
reported  to  have  muttered.  Say 
rather,  quah's  moechus. 


VI. 

THE    HOUSE    OF    FLAVIA. 


VI. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  FLAVIA. 

It  was  in  those  days  that  the  nebu- 
lous figure  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana 
appeared  and  disappeared  in  Rome. 
His  speech,  a  wayward  commingHng 
of  pueriHty  and  charm,  Philostratus  has 
preserved.  Rumor  had  preceded  him. 
It  was  said  that  he  knew  everything, 
save  the  caresses  of  women ;  that  he  was 
famihar  with  all  languages;  with  the 
speech  of  bird  and  beast;  with  that  of 
silence,  for  silence  is  a  language  too; 
that  he  had  prayed  in  the  Temple  of 
Jupiter  Lycceus,  where  men  lost  their 
shadows,  their  lives  as  well;  that  he 
had  undergone  the  eighty  initiations 
of  Mithra;  that  he  had  perplexed  the 
magi;  confuted  the  gymnosophists; 
that  he  foretold  the  future,  healed  the 
sick,  raised  the  dead;  that  beyond  the 


130  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Himalayas  he  had  encountered  every 
species  of  ferocious  beast,  except  the 
tyrant,  and  that  it  was  to  see  one  he 
had  come  to  Rome. 

Nero  was  singularly  free  from  pre 
judice.  Apart  from  a  doll  which  he 
worshipped  he  had  no  superstitions. 
He  had  the  plain  man's  dislike  of  phi- 
losophy; Seneca  had  sickened  him  of 
it,  perhaps;  but  he  was  sensitive,  not 
that  he  troubled  himself  particularly 
about  any  lies  that  were  told  of  him, 
but  he  did  object  to  people  who  went 
about  telling  the  truth.  In  that  re- 
spect he  was  not  unique;  we  are  all 
like  him,  but  he  had  ways  of  stilling 
the  truth  which  were  imperial  and  his 
own. 

Promptly  on  Apollonius  he  loosed 
his  bull-dog  Tigellin,  prefect  of  police. 

Tigellin  caught  him.  "What  have 
you  with  you?"  he  asked. 

"Continence,  Justice,  Temperance, 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  131 

Strength  and  Patience,"  Apollonius 
answered. 

"Your  slaves,  I  suppose.  Make  out 
a  list  of  them." 

Apollonius  shook  his  head.  "They 
are  not  my  slaves;  they  are  my  mas- 
ters." 

"There  is  but  one,"  Tigellin  re- 
torted— "Nero.  Why  do  you  not 
fear  him.'*" 

"Because  the  god  that  made  him 
terrible  made  me  without  fear." 

"I  will  leave  you  your  liberty," 
muttered  the  startled  Tigellin,  "but 
you  must  give  bail." 

"And  who,"  asked  Apollonius  su- 
perbly, "would  bail  a  man  whom  no 
one  can  enchain.^"  Therewith  he 
turned  and  disappeared. 

At  that  time  Nero  was  in  training 
to  suffocate  a  lion  in  the  arena.  A 
few  days  later  he  killed  himself. 
Simultaneously  there  came  news  from 


182  IMPERIAL   PURPLE. 

Syracuse.  A  woman  of  rank  had 
given  birth  to  a  child  with  three 
heads.     Apollonius  examined  it. 

"There  will  be  three  emperors  at 
once,"  he  announced.  "But  their 
reign  will  be  shorter  than  that  of 
kings  on  the  stage." 

Within  that  year  Galba,  who  was 
emperor  for  an  instant,  died  at  the 
gates  of  Rome.  Vitellius,  after  being 
emperor  in  little  else  than  dream,  was 
butchered  in  the  Forum;  and  Otho, 
in  that  fine  antique  fashion,  killed 
himself  in  Gaul.  Apollonius  mean- 
while was  in  Alexandria,  predicting 
the  purple  to  Vespasian,  the  rise  of 
the  House  of  Flavia;  invoking  Jupiter 
in  his  protege' 's  behalf;  and  presently, 
the  prediction  accomplished,  he  was 
back  in  Rome,  threatening  Domitian, 
warning  him  that  the  House  of  Flavia 
would  fall. 

The  atmosphere  then  was  charged 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  133 

with  the  marvelous;  the  world  was 
filled  with  prodigies,  with  strange 
gods,  beckoning  chimeras  and  cred- 
ulous crowds.  Belief  in  the  super- 
natural was  absolute;  the  occult 
sciences,  astrology,  magic,  divination, 
all  had  their  adepts.  In  Greece  there 
were  oracles  at  every  turn,  and  with 
them  prophets  who  taught  the  art  of 
adultery  and  how  to  construe  the  past. 
On  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  there 
were  virgins  who  were  regarded  as 
divinities,  and  in  Gaul  were  men  who 
were  held  wholly  divine. 

Jerusalem  too  had  her  follies. 
There  was  Simon-  the  Magician, 
founder  of  gnosticism,  father  of  every 
heresy,  Messiah  to  the  Jews,  Jupiter 
to  the  Gentiles — an  impudent  self- 
made  god,  who  pretended  to  float  in 
the  air,  and  called  his  mistress 
Minerva — a  deification,  parentheti- 
cally, which  was  accepted  by  Nicho- 


184  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

las,  his  successor,  a  deacon  of  the 
church,  who  raised  her  to  the  eighth 
heaven  as  patron  saint  of  lust.  To 
him,  as  to  Simon,  she  was  Ennoia, 
Prunikos,  Helen  of  Troy.  She  had 
been  Delilah,  Lucretia.  She  had 
prostituted  herself  to  every  nation; 
she  had  sung  in  the  b3'ways,  and  hid- 
den robbers  in  the  vermin  of  her  bed. 
But  by  Simon  she  was  rehabilitated. 
It  was  she,  no  doubt,  of  whom  Cali- 
gula thought  when  he  beckoned  to 
the  moon.  In  Rome  she  had  her 
statue,  and  near  it  was  one  to  Simon, 
the  holy  god. 

But  of  all  manifestations  of  divinity 
the  most  patent  was  that  which  haloed 
Vespasian.  He  expected  it,  Sueton- 
ius says,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  anyone 
else  did.  One  night  he  dreamed  that 
an  era  of  prosperity  was  to  dawn  for 
him  and  his  when  Nero  lost  a  tooth. 
The    next    day    he  was    shown    one 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  135 

which  had  just  been  drawn  from  the 
emperor's  mouth.  But  that  was 
nothing.  Presently  at  Carmel  the 
Syrian  oracle  assured  him  that  he 
would  be  successful  in  whatever 
enterprise  he  undertook.  From 
Rome  word  came  that,  while  the 
armies  of  Vitellius  and  Otho  were 
fighting,  two  eagles  had  fought  above 
them,  and  that  the  victor  had  been 
despatched  by  a  third  eagle  that  had 
come  from  the  East.  In  Alexandria 
Serapis  whispered  to  him.  The  entire 
menagerie  of  Egypt  proclaimed  him 
king.  Apis  bellowed,  Anubis  barked. 
Isis  visited  him  unveiled.  The  lame 
and  the  blind  pressed  about  him;  he 
cured  them  with  a  touch.  There 
could  be  no  reasonable  doubt  now; 
surely  he  was  a  god.  On  his  shoul- 
ders Apollonius  threw  the  purple,  and 
Vespasian  set  out  for  Rome. 

His    antecedents    were    less    propi- 


136  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

tious.  The  descendent  of  an  obscure 
centurion,  Titus  Flavins  Petronius  by 
name,  who,  by  the  way,  was  in  no 
wise  connected  with  the  author  of  the 
Satyricon,  Vespasian  in  early  days 
had  been  a  veterinary  surgeon;  then, 
having  got  Caligula's  ear,  he  flattered 
it  abominably.  Caligula  disposed  of, 
he  flattered  Claud,  or  what  amounted 
to  the  same  thing.  Narcissus,  Claud's 
chamberlain.  Through  the  influence 
of  that  eunuch  he  became  a  lieutenant, 
fought  on  remote  frontiers — fought 
well,  too — so  well  even  that,  Narcissus 
gone,  he  felt  Agrippina  watching  him, 
and  knowing  the  jealousy  of  her  eyes, 
prudently  kept  quiet  until  that  lady 
died. 

With  Nero  he  promenaded  through 
Greece — sat  at  the  Olympian  games 
and  fell  asleep  when  his  emperor 
sang.  Treason  of  that  high  nature — 
sacrilege,  rather,  for  Nero  was  then 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  137 

a  god — might  have  been  overlooked, 
had  it  occurred  but  once,  for  Nero 
could  be  magnanimous  when  he  chose. 
But  it  always  occurred.  To  Nero's 
tremolo  invariably  came  the  accom- 
paniment of  Vespasian's  snore.  He 
was  dreaming  of  that  tooth,  no  doubt. 
"I  am  not  a  soporific,  am  I.^"  Nero 
gnashed  at  him,  and  banished  the 
blasphemer  forever  from  his  sight. 

For  a  while  Vespasian  lived  in  con- 
stant expectation  of  some  civil 
message  inviting  him  to  die.  Finally 
it  came,  only  he  was  invited  to  die  at 
the  head  of  an  army  which  Nero  had 
projected  against  seditious  Jews. 
When  he  returned,  leaving  his  son 
Titus  to  attend  to  Jerusalem,  it  was 
as  emperor. 

Onl}'  a  moment  before  Vitellius 
had  been  disposed  of.  That  curious 
glutton,  whom  the  Rhenish  legions 
had   chosen   because  of   his  off-hand 


138  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

familiarity,  would  willingly  have  fled 
had  the  soldiery  let  him.  But  not  at 
all;  they  wanted  a  prince  of  their  own 
manufacture.  They  knew  nothing  of 
Vespasian,  cared  less;  and  into  the 
Capitol  they  chased  the  latter's  par- 
tisans, his  son  Domitian  as  well.  The 
besieged  defended  themselves  with 
masterpieces,  with  sacred  urns,  the 
statues  of  gods,  the  pedestals  of  divin- 
ities. Suddenly  the  Capitol  was 
aflame.  Simultaneously  Vespasian's 
advance  guard  beat  at  the  gates.  The 
besiegers  turned,  the  mob  was  with 
them,  and  together  they  fought,  first 
at.the  gates,  then  in  the  streets,  in  the 
Forum,  retreating  always,  but  like 
lions,  their  face  to  the  foe.  The  vol- 
atile mob,  noting  the  retreat,  turned 
from  combatant  into  spectator.  Let 
the  soldiers  fight;  it  was  their  duty, 
not  theirs;  and,  as  the  struggle  con- 
tinued, from   roof   and  window   they 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  139 

eyed  it  with  that  artistic  dehght  which 
the  arena  had  developed,  applauding 
the  clever  thrusts,  abusing  the  van- 
quished, robbing  the  dead,  and  there- 
with pillaging  the  wineshops,  crowding 
the  lupanars.  During  the  org}',  Vitel- 
lius  was  stabbed.  The  Flavians  had 
won  the  day,  the  empire  was  Ves- 
pasian's. 

The  use  he  made  of  it  was  very 
modest.  In  spite  of  his  manifest  di- 
vinity he  had  nothing  in  common  with 
the  Caesars  that  had  gone  before;  he 
had  no  dreams  of  the  impossible,  no 
desire  to  frighten  Jupiter  or  seduce 
the  moon.  He  was  a  plain  man,  tall 
and  ruddy,  very  coarse  in  speech  and 
thought,  open-armed  and  close-fisted, 
slapping  senators  on  the  back  and 
keeping  a  sharp  eye  on  the  coppers; 
taxing  the  latrinae,  and  declaring  that 
money  had  no  smell;  yet  still,  in  com- 
parison with  Claud  and  Nero,  almost 


140  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  ideal;  absolutely  uninteresting 
also,  yet  doing  what  good  he  could; 
effacing  at  once  the  traces  of  the  civil 
war,  rebuilding  the  Capitol,  calming 
the  people,  protecting  the  provinces, 
restoring  to  Rome  the  gardens  of 
Nero,  clipping  the  wings  of  the  Palace 
of  Gold,  throwing  open  again  the 
Via  Sacra,  over  which  the  Palace  had 
spread;  draining  the  lake  that  had 
shimmered  before  it,  and  erecting  in 
its  place  that  wonderful  Colosseum 
which  enchants  us  still. 

In  spite  of  Serapis,  Anubis  and  Isis, 
he  had  not  the  faintest  odor  of  myth 
about  him ;  he  was  frightfully  bour- 
geois, distressingly  commonplace;  he 
lacked  even  that  atmosphere  of  bur- 
lesque that  surrounded  Claud;  he  had 
not  a  vice  he  could  call  his  own. 
But  he  was  a  soldier,  a  brave  one, 
too ;  and  if,  with  the  acquired  economy 
of  a  subaltern  who  has  been  obliged 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  141 

to  live  on  his  pay,  he  kept  his  purse- 
strings  tight,  they  were  loose  enough 
if  a  friend  was  in  need,  and  he  paid 
no  one  the  compliment  of  a  lie.  He 
was  projected  sheer  out  of  the  repub- 
lic. The  better  part  of  his  life  had 
been  passed  under  arms;  the  delicate 
sensuality  of  Rome  was  foreign  to 
him.  It  was  there  that  Domitian  had 
lived. 

'It  were  interesting  to  have  watched 
that  young  man  killing  flies  by  the 
hour,  while  he  meditated  on  the  atro- 
cities he  was  to  commit — atrocities  so 
numberless  and  needless  that  in  the 
red  halls  of  the  Caesars  he  has  left  a 
portrait  which  is  unique.  Slender, 
graceful,  handsome,  as  were  all  the 
young  emperors  of  old  Rome,  his 
blue,  troubled  eyes  took  pleasure,  if  at 
all,  only  in  the  sight  of  blood. 

In  accordance  with  the  fashion 
«which   those   leaders,    Caligula    and 


142  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

Nero,  had  set,  Domitian's  earliest 
manners  were  those  of  an  urbane  and 
gentle  prince.  Later,  when  he  made 
it  his  turn  to  rule,  informers  begged 
their  bread  in  exile.  Where  they 
are  not  punished,  he  announced, 
they  are  encouraged.  The  sacrifices 
were  so  distressing  to  him  that  he 
forbade  the  immolation  of  oxen.  He 
was  disinterested,  too,  refusing  lega- 
cies when  the  testator  left  nearer 
heirs,  and  therewith  royally  generous, 
covering  his  suite  with  presents,  and 
declaring  that  to  him  avarice  of  all 
vices  was  the  lowest  and  most  vile. 
In  short,  you  would  have  said  another 
adolescent  Nero  come  to  Rome;  there 
was  the  same  silken  sweetness  of  de- 
meanor, the  same  ready  blush,  in  ad- 
dition to  a  zeal  for  justice  and  equity 
which  other  young  emperors  had 
been  too  thoughtless  to  show. 

His   boyhood,  too,    had    not    been 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  143 

above  reproach.  The  same  things 
were  whispered  about  him  that  had 
been  shouted  at  Augustus.  Mani- 
festly he  lacked  not  one  of  the  quali- 
ties which  go  to  the  making  of  a 
model  prince.  Vespasian  alone  had 
his  doubts. 

"Mushrooms  won't  hurt  you,"  he 
cried  one  day,  as  Domitian  started  at 
the  sight  of  a  ragout  a  la  Sardan- 
apale^  which  he  fancied,  possibly,  was 
a  la  Locuste.  "It  is  steel  you  should 
fear." 

At  that  time,  with  a  father  for 
emperor  and  a  brother  who  was  sack- 
ing Jerusalem,  Domitian  had  but  one 
cause  for  anxiety,  to  wit — that  the 
empire  might  escape  him.  It  was 
then  he  began  his  meditations  over 
holocausts  of  flies.  For  hours  he 
secluded  himself,  occupied  solely  with 
their  slaughter.  He  treated  them 
precisely  as  Titus  treated  the  Jews, 


144  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

enjoying  the  quiver  of  their  legs,  the 
Httle  agonies  of  their  silent  death. 

Tiberius  had  been  in  love  vi^ith  soli- 
tude, but  never  as  he.  Night  after 
night  he  wandered  on  the  terraces  of 
the  palace,  watching  the  red  moon 
wane  white,  companioned  only  by  his 
dreams,  those  waking  dreams  that 
poets  and  madmen  share,  that  Pallas 
had  him  in  her  charge,  that  Psyche 
was  amorous  of  his  e3'es. 

Meanwhile  he  was  nobody,  a  young 
gentleman  merely,  who  might  have 
moved  in  the  best  society,  and 
who  preferred  the  worst — his  own. 
The  sudden  elevation  of  Vespasian 
preoccupied  him,  and  while  he  knew 
that  in  the  natural  course  of  events  his 
father  would  move  to  Olympus,  yet 
there  was  his  brother  Titus,  on  whose 
broad  shoulders  the  mantle  of  purple 
would  fall.  If  the  seditious  Jews  only 
knew  their  business!     But  no.    Forty 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  146 

years  before  a  white  apparition  on  the 
way  to  Golgotha  had  cried  to  a  hand- 
ful of  women,  "The  days  are  coming 
in  which  they  shall  say  to  the  mount- 
ains, 'Fall  on  us';  to  the  hills,  'Cover 
us.' "  And  the  days  had  come.  A 
million  of  them  had  been  butchered. 
From  the  country  they  had  fled  to  the 
city ;  from  Acra  they  had  climbed  to 
Zion.  When  the  city  burst  into 
flames  their  blood  put  it  out.  Decid- 
edly they  did  not  know  their  business. 
Titus,  instead  of  being  stabbed  before 
Jerusalem's  walls,  was  marching  in 
triumph  to  Rome. 

The  procession  that  presently  en- 
tered the  gates  was  a  stream  of  splen- 
dor; crowns  of  rubies  and  gold;  gar- 
ments that  glistened  with  gems;  gods 
on  their  sacred  pedestals ;  prisoners ; 
curious  beasts;  Jerusalem  in  miniature; 
pictures  of  war;  booty  from  the  Tem- 
ple, the  veil,  the  candelabra,  the  cups  of 

10 


146  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

gold  and  the  Book  of  the  Law  To 
the  rear  rumbled  the  triumphal  car, 
in  which  laureled  and  mantled  Titus 
stood,  Vespasian  at  his  side;  while,  in 
the  distance,  on  horseback,  came 
Domitian — a  supernumerary,  ignored 
by  the  crowd. 

When  the  prisoners  disappeared  in 
the  Tullianum  and  a  herald  shouted, 
"They  have  lived!"  Domitian  re- 
turned to  the  palace  and  hunted 
morosely  for  flies.  The  excesses  of 
the  festival  in  which  Rome  was 
swooning  then  had  no  delights  for 
him.  Presently  the  moon  would  rise, 
and  then  on  the  deserted  terrace  per- 
haps he  would  bathe  a  little  in  her 
light,  and  dream'  again  of  Pallas  and 
of  the  possibilities  of  an  emperor's 
sway,  but  meanwhile  those  blue 
troubled  eyes  that  Psyche  was  amor- 
ous of  were  filled  with  envy  and  with 
hate.     It  was  not  that  he  begrudged 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  147 

Titus  the  triumph.  The  man  who 
had  disposed  of  a  milHon  Jews  de- 
served not  one  triumph,  but  ten.  It 
was  the  purple  that  haunted  him. 

Domitian  was  then  in  the  early 
twenties.  The  Temple  of  Peace  was 
ascending;  the  Temple  of  Janus  was 
closed ;  the  empire  was  at  rest.  Side 
by  side  with  Vespasian,  Titus  ruled. 
From  the  Euphrates  came  the  rumor 
of  some  vague  revolt.  Domitian 
thought  he  would  like  to  quell  it. 
He  was  requested  to  keep  quiet.  It 
occurred  to  him  that  his  father  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  himself  to  reign  so 
long.  He  was  requested  to  vacate 
his  apartment.  There  were  dumb 
plots  in  dark  cellars,  of  which  only 
the  echo  of  a  whisper  has  descended 
to  us,  but  which  at  the  time  were 
quite  loud  enough  to  reach  Vespa- 
sian's ears.  Titus  interceded.  Do- 
mitian  was    requested     to     behave. 


148  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

For  a  while  he  prowled  in  the 
moonlight.  He  had  been  too  precip- 
itate, he  decided,  and  to  allay  sus- 
picion presently  he  went  about  in  soci- 
ety, mingling  his  hours  with  those  of 
married  women.  Manifestly  his  ways 
had  mended.  But  Vespasian,  was 
uneasy.  A  comet  had  appeared. 
The  doors  of  the  imperial  mausoleum 
had  opened  of  themselves,  besides,  he 
was  not  well.  The  robust  and  hardy 
soldier,  suddenly  without  tangible 
cause,  felt  his  strength  give  way. 
"It  is  nothing,"  his  physician  said;  "a 
slight  attack  of  fever."  Vespasian 
shook  his  head;  he  knew  things  of 
which  the  physician  was  ignorant. 
"It  is  death,"  he  answered,  "and  an 
emperor  should  meet  it  standing." 

Titus'  turn  came  next.  A  violent, 
headstrong,  handsome,  rapacious 
prince,  terribly  prodigal,  thoroughly 
Oriental,  surrounded  by  dancers  and 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  149 

mignons,  living  in  state  with  a  queen 
for  mistress,  startling  even  Rome  with 
the  uproar  of  his  debauches — no 
sooner  was  Vespasian  gone  than 
presto!  the  queen  went  home,  the 
dancers  disappeared,  the  debauches 
ceased,  and  a  ruler  appeared  who  de- 
clared he  had  lost  a  day  that  a  good 
action  had  not  marked;  a  ruler  who 
could  announce  that  no  one  should 
leave  his  presence  depressed. 

Though  Vespasian  had  gone,  his 
reign  continued.  Not  long,  it  is  true, 
and  punctuated  by  a  spectacle  of  which 
Caligula,  for  all  his  poetry,  had  not 
dreamed — the  burial  of  Pompeii.  But 
a  reign  which,  while  it  lasted,  was 
fastidious  and  refined,  and  during 
which,  again  and  again,  Titus,  who 
commanded  death  and  whom  death 
obeyed,  besought  Domitian,  the  tears 
in  his  eyes,  to  be  to  him  a  brother. 

Domitian    had    no    such   intention. 


160  IMPERIAL   PURPLE. 

He  had  a  party  behind  him,  one  made 
up  of  old  Neronians,  the  army  of  the 
discontented,  who  wanted  a  change, 
and  greatly  admired  this  charming 
young  prince  whose  hours  were  passed 
in  killing  flies  and  making  love  to 
married  women.  The  pretorians  too 
had  been  seduced.  Domitian  could 
make  captivating  promises  when  he 
chose. 

As  a  consequence  Titus,  like  Ves- 
pasian, was  uneasy,  and  with  cause. 
Dion  Cassius,  or  rather  that  brute 
Xiphilin,  his  abbreviator,  mentions  the 
fever  that  overtook  him,  the  same  his 
father  had  met.  It  was  mortal,  of 
course,  and  the  purple  was  Domitian's. 

For  a  year  and  a  day  thereafter  you 
would  have  thought  Titus  still  at  the 
helm.  There  was  the  same  clem- 
ency, the  same  regard  for  justice,  the 
same  refinement  and  fastidiousness. 
The  morose  young  poet  had  developed 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  151 

into    a    model    monarch.     The     old 
Neronians  were  perplexed,    irritated 
too;  they  had  expected  other  things. 
Domitian  was  merely  feeling  the  way ; 
the  hand  that  held  the  sceptre  was  not 
quite  sure  of  its  strength,  and,  tenta- 
tively almost,   this  Prince   of  Virtue 
began    to    scrutinize   the    morals    of 
Rome.     For  the  first  time  he  noticed 
that  the  cocottes  took  their  airing  in 
litters.     But  litters  were  not  for  them! 
That  abuse  he  put  a  stop  to  at  once. 
A  senator  manifested  an  interest   in 
ballet-girls;  he  was  disgraced.     The 
vestals,  to  whose  indiscretions  no  one 
had  paid  much  attention,  learned  the 
statutes  of  an  archaic  law,  and  were 
buried  alive.     The  early  distaste  for 
blood  was  diminishing.     Domitian  had 
the    purple,    but    it   was   not    bright 
enough;  he  wanted  it  red,  and  what 
Domitian  wanted  he  got.     Your  god 
and  master  orders  it,  was  the  formula 


152  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

he  began  to  use  when  addressing 
the    Senate    and    People    of    Rome. 

To  that  the  people  were  indifferent. 
The  spectacles  he  gave  in  the  Flavian 
amphitheatre  were  too  magnificently 
atrocious  not  to  be  a  compensation  in 
full  for  any  eccentricity  in  which  he 
might  indulge.  Besides,  under  Nero, 
Claud,  Caligula,  on  en  avail  vu  hien 
d'autres.  And  at  those  spectacles 
where  he  presided,  crowned  with  a 
tiara,  on  which  were  the  images  of 
Jupiter,  Juno  and  Minerva,  while 
grouped  about  him  the  college  of  Fla- 
vian flamens  wore  tiaras  that  differed 
therefrom  merely  in  this,  that  they 
bore  his  image  too,  the  people  right 
royally  applauded  their  master  and 
their  god. 

And  it  was  just  as  well  they  did; 
Domitian  was  quite  capable  of  order- 
ing everybody  into  the  arena.  As  yet, 
however,  he  had  appeared  little  differ- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  153 

ent  from  any  other  prince.  That 
Rome  might  understand  that  there  was 
a  difference,  and  also  in  what  that  dif- 
ference consisted,  he  gave  a  supper. 
The  flower  of  fashion  was  invited,  the 
magnates  of  the  senate,  everyone 
worth  knowing  was  bidden,  and,  as  is 
usual  in  state  functions,  everyone  that 
was  bidden  came. 

The  guests  assembled.  There  was 
Domitian,  gracious,  suave,  urbane. 
Enchantment  was  visible  on  every 
countenance.  Presently  enchantment 
changed  to  nervousness,  and  down  the 
backs  of  the  invited  little  shivers  ran. 
The  supper  hall  was  draped  with  black; 
the  ceiling,  the  walls,  the  floor,  every- 
thing was  basaltic.  The  couches  were 
black,  the  linen  was  black,  the  slaves 
were  black.  Behind  each  guest  was  a 
broken  column,  his  name  inscribed 
thereon.  The  food  was  such  as  is  pre- 
pared when    death    has    come.     The 


154  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

silence  was  that  of  the  tomb.  The  only 
audible  voice  was  Domitian's.  He 
was  talking  very  wittily  and  charm- 
ingly about  murder,  about  proscrip- 
tions, the  good  informers  do,  the  util- 
ity of  the  headsman,  the  majesty  of 
the  law.  The  guests,  a  trifle  ill  at  ease, 
wished  their  host  sweet  dreams.  "The 
same  to  you,"  he  answered,  and  de- 
plored that  they  must  go. 

On  the  morrow  informers  and 
headsmen  were  at  work.  Any  pre- 
text was  sufficient.  Birth,  wealth, 
fame,  or  the  lack  of  them — anything 
whatever — and  there  the  culprit  stood, 
charged  not  with  treason  to  an  em- 
peror, but  with  impiety  to  a  god. 
On  the  judgment  seat  Domitian  sat. 
Before  him  the  accused  passed, 
and  under  his  eyes  they  were 
questioned,  tortured,  condemned  and 
killed.  At  once  their  property 
passed  into  the  keeping  of  the  prince. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  155 

Of  that  he  seems  to  have  had  much 
need.  The  arena  was  expensive,  but 
the  drain  was  elsewhere.  A  Httle 
before,  a  quarrelsome  people,  the 
Dacians,  whom  it  took  a  Trajan  to 
subdue,  had  overrun  the  Danube,  and 
were  marching  down  to  Rome.  Domit- 
ian  set  out  to  meet  them.  The 
Dacians  retreated,  not  at  all  because 
they  were  repulsed,  but  because  Domit- 
ian  thought  it  better  warfare  to  pay 
them  to  do  so.  On  his  return  after 
that  victory  he  enjoyed  a  triumph  as 
fair  as  that  of  Csesar.  And  each  year 
since  then  the  emperor  of  Rome  had 
paid  tribute  to  a  nation  of  mongrel 
oafs. 

Of  course  he  needed  money.  The 
informers  were  there  and  he  got  it, 
and  with  it  that  spectacle  of  torture 
and  of  blood  which  he  needed  too. 
Curiously,  his  melancholy  increased; 
his  good  looks  had  gone;  Psyche  was 


156  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

no  longer  amorous  of  his  eyes.  The 
poet  that  had  invoked  the  moon  passed 
hour  after  hour  kilHng  not  flies,  but 
beasts  that  were  driven  before  him, 
and  at  which  he  shot  arrows,  seated 
on  a  stool. 

But  his  nights  were  terrible.  It  was 
no  longer  the  purple  that  haunted 
him,  it  was  something  he  could  not 
define;  the  past,  perhaps,  perhaps  the 
future.  To  his  ears  came  strange 
sounds,  the  murmur  of  his  own  name, 
and  suddenly  silence.  Then,  too, 
there  always  seemed  to  be  something 
behind  him;  something  that  when  he 
turned  disappeared.  The  room  in  which 
he  slept  he  had  covered  with  a  polished 
metal  that  reflected  everything,  yet 
still  the  intangible  was  there.  Once 
Pallas  came  in  her  chariot,  waved  him 
farewell,  and  disappeared,  borne  by 
black    horses   across  the  black  night. 

The  astrologers  consulted  had  noth- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  157 

ing  pleasant  to  say.  They  knew,  as 
Domitian  knew,  that  the  end  was  near. 
So  was  theirs.  To  one  of  them,  who 
predicted  his  immediate  death,  he  en- 
quired, "What  will  your  end  be.?" 
"I,"  answered  the  astrologer.  "I  shall 
be  torn  by  dogs."  "To  the  stake  with 
him!"  cried  Domitian;  "let  him  be 
burned  alive!"  Suetonius  says  that 
a  storm  put  out  the  flames,  and  dogs 
devoured  the  flesh.  Another  astrolo- 
ger predicted  that  Domitian  would  die 
before  noon  on  the  morrow.  In  order 
to  convince  him  of  his  error,  Domitian 
ordered  him  to  be  executed  the  sub- 
sequent night.  Before  noon  on  the 
morrow  Domitian  was  dead. 

Philostratus  and  Dion  Cassius  both 
unite  in  saying  that  at  that  hour 
Apollonius  was  at  Ephesus,  preaching 
to  the  multitude.  In  the  middle  of  the 
sermon  he  hesitated,  as  though  the 
thread   of  his   discourse    had  escaped 


168  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

him,  but  in  a  moment  he  began  anew. 
Again  he  hesitated,  his  eyes  on  the 
distant  horizon;  then  suddenly  he 
shouted,  "Strike  him!  Strike  him  once 
more!"  And  immediately  to  his 
startled  audience  he  related  a  scene 
that  was  occurring  at  Rome,  the  attack 
on  Domitian,  his  struggle  with  his  as- 
sailant, his  effort  to  tear  out  his  eyes, 
the  rush  of  conspirators,  and  finally 
the  fall  of  the  emperor,  pierced  by 
seven  knives. 

The  story  may  not  be  true,  and  yet 
if  it  were! 


VII 

THE    POISON    IN    THE    PURPLE. 


VII. 

THE    POISON    IN    THE    PURPLE. 

Rome  never  was  healthy.  The 
tramontana  visited  it  then  as  now, 
fever  too,  and  sudden  death.  To  em- 
perors it  was  fatal.  Since  Caesar  a 
malaria  had  battened  on  them  all. 
NervA  escaped,  but  only  through 
abdication.  The  mantle  that  fell  from 
Domitian's  shoulders  on  to  his  was  so 
dangerous  in  its  splendor,  that,  fearing 
the  infection,  he  passed  it  to  Ulpius 
Trajanus,  the  lustre  undimmed. 

Ulpius  Trajanus,  Trajan  for  brevity, 
a  Spaniard  by  birth,  a  soldier  by 
choice;  one  who  had  fought  against 
Parthian  and  Jew,  who  had  tramped 
through  Pannonia  and  made  it  his  own; 
a  general  whose  hair  had  whitened  on 


162  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  field;  a  consul  who  had  frightened 
nations,  was  afraid  of  the  sheen  of  that 
purple  which  dazzled,  corroded  and 
killed.  He  bore  it,  indeed,  but  at 
arms-length.  He  kept  himself  free 
from  the  subtlety  of  its  poison,  from 
the  microbes  of  Rome  as  well. 

He  was  in  Cologne  when  Domitian 
died  and  Nerva  accepted  and  renounced 
the  throne.  It  was  a  year  before  he 
ventured  among  the  seven  hills.  When 
he  arrived  you  would  have  said  an- 
other Augustus,  not  the  real  Augustus, 
but  the  Augustus  of  legend,  and  the 
late  Mr.  Gibbon.  When  he  girt  the  new 
prefect  of  the  pretorium  with  the  im- 
memorial sword,  he  addressed  him  in 
copy-book  phrases — "If  I  rule  wisel}^, 
use  it  for  me;  unwisely,  against  me." 

Rome  listened  open-mouthed.  The 
change  from  Domitian's  formula, 
"Your  god  and  master  orders  it," was 
too  abrupt  to  be  immediately  under- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  163 

Stood.  Before  it  was  grasped  Trajan 
was  off  again;  this  time  to  the  Danube 
and  beyond  it,  to  Dacia  and  her  fens. 

Many  years  later — a  century  or  two, 
to  be  exact — a  Persian  satrap  loitered 
in  a  forum  of  Rome.  "It  is  here,"  he 
declared,  "I  am  tempted  to  forget  that 
man  is  mortal." 

He  had  passed  beneath  a  triumphal 
arch;  before  him  was  a  glittering 
square, grandiose, yet  severe;  a  stretch 
of  temples  and  basilicas,  in  which  mas 
terpieces  felt  at  home — the  Forum  of 
Trajan,  the  compliment  of  a  nation  to 
a  prince.  Dominating  it  was  a  col- 
umn, in  whose  thick  spirals  you  read 
to-day  the  one  reliable  chronicle  of  the 
Dacian  campaign.  Was  not  Gautier 
well  advised  when  he  said  only  art 
endures  ? 

There  were  other  chronicles  in 
plenty;  there  were  the  histories  of 
^lius  Maurus,  of  Marius  Maximus, 


164  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

and  that  of  Spartian,  but  they  are  lost. 
There  is  a  page  or  two  in  the  abbre- 
viation which  XiphiHn  made  of  Dion; 
AureHus  Victor  has  a  Httle  to  add,  so 
also  has  Eutropus,  but  practically 
speaking,  there  is,  apart  from  that  col- 
umn, nothing  save  conjecture. 

Campaigns  are  wearisome  reading, 
but  not  the  one  that  is  pictured  there. 
You  ask  a  curve  a  question,  and  in  the 
next  you  find  the  reply.  There  is  a 
point,  however,  on  which  it  is  dumb — 
the  origin  of  the  war.  But  if  you  wish 
to  know  the  result,  not  the  momentary 
and  transient  result,  but  the  sequel 
which  futurity  held,  look  at  the  ruins 
at  that  column's  base. 

The  origin  of  the  war  was  Domitian's 
diplomacy.  The  chieftain  whom  he 
had  made  king,  and  who  had  been  sur- 
prised enough  at  receiving  a  diadem 
instead  of  the  pointof  a  sword,  fancied, 
and  not  unreasonably,  that  the  annuity 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  166 

which  Rome  paid  him  was  to  continue 
forever.  But  Domitian,  though  a  god, 
was  not  otherwise  immortal.  When 
he  died  abruptly  the  annuit}^  ceased. 
The  Dacian  king  sent  word  that  he  was 
surprised  at  the  delay,  but  he  must 
have  been  far  more  so  at  the  prompt- 
ness with  which  he  got  Trajan's  re- 
ply. It  was  a  blare  of  bugles,  which 
he  thought  forever  dumb;  a  flight  of 
eagles,  which  he  thought  were  winged. 
In  the  spirals  of  the  column  you  see 
the  advancing  army,  the  retreating 
foe;  then  the  Dacian  dragon  saluting 
the  standards  of  Rome;  peace  de- 
clared, and  an  army,  whose  very  re- 
pose is  menacing,  standing  there  to 
see  that  peace  is  kept.  And  was  it.^ 
In  the  ascending  spiral  is  the  new  re- 
volt, the  attempt  to  assassinate  Tra- 
jan, the  capture  of  the  conspirators, 
the  advance  of  the  legions,  the  retreat 
of  the  Dacians,  burning  their  cities  as 


166  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

they  go,  carrying  their  wounded  and 
their  women  with  them,  and  at  last 
pressing  about  a  huge  cauldron  that  is 
filled  with  poison,  fighting  among  them- 
selves for  a  cup  of  the  brew,  and  roll- 
ing on  the  ground  in  the  convulsions 
of  death.  Further  on  is  the  treasure 
of  the  king.  To  hide  it  he  had  turned 
a  river  from  its  source,  sunk  the  gold 
in  a  vault  beneath,  and  killed  the 
workmen  that  had  labored  there.  Be- 
yond is  the  capture  of  the  capital,  the 
suicide  of  the  chief,  a  troop  of  soldiers 
driving  captives  and  cattle  before 
them,  the  death  of  a  nation  and  the 
end  of  war. 

The  subsequent  triumph  does  not 
appear  on  the  column.  It  is  said  that 
ten  thousand  beasts  were  slaughtered 
in  the  arenas,  slaughtering,  as  they 
fell,  a  thousand  of  their  slaughterers. 
But  the  spectacle,  however  fair,  was 
not  of  a  nature  to  detain  Trajan  long 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  167 

in  Rome.  The  air  there  had  not  im- 
proved in  the  least,  and  presently  he 
was  off  again,  this  time  on  the  banks 
of  the  Euphrates,  arguing  with  the 
Parthians,  avoiding  danger  in  the 
only  way  he  knew,  by  facing  it. 

It  was  then  that  the  sheen  of  the 
purple  glowed.  If  lusterless  at  home, 
it  was  royally  red  abroad.  In  a  cam- 
paign that  was  little  more  than  a 
triumphant  promenade  he  doubled  the 
empire.  To  the  world  of  Caesar  he 
added  that  of  Alexander.  Allies  he 
turned  into  subjects,  vassals  into  slaves. 
Armenia,  Mesopotamia,  Assyria,  were 
added  to  the  realm.  Trajan's  foot- 
stools were  diadems.  He  had  moved 
back  one  frontier,  he  moved  an- 
other. From  Great  Britain  to  the 
Indus,  Rome  was  mistress  of  the  earth. 
Had  Trajan  been  younger,  China, 
whose  very  name  was  unknown,  would 
have  y^'elded  to  him  her  corruption,  her 


168  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

printing  press,  her  powder  and  her  tea. 
That  he  would  have  enjoyed  these 
things  is  not  at  all  conjectural.  He 
was  then  an  old  man,  but  he  was  not 
a  good  one — at  least  not  in  the  sense 
we  use  the  term  to-day.  He  had 
habits  which  are  regarded  now  less 
as  vices  than  perversions,  but  which  at 
that  time  were  taken  as  a  matter  of 
course  and  accepted  by  every  one, 
even  by  the  stoics,  very  calmly,  with 
a  grain  of  Attic  salt  at  that.  Men 
were  regarded  as  virtuous  when  they 
were  brave,  when  they  were  honest; 
the  idea  of  using  the  expression  in  its 
later  sense  occurred,  if  at  all,  in  jest 
merely,  as  a  synonym  for  the  eunuch. 
It  was  the  matron  and  the  vestal  who 
were  supposed  to  be  virtuous,  never 
the  man;  and  that  feminine  virtue  was 
wholly  suppositious,  no  one  who  has 
sauntered  through  the  catacombs  of 
the  classics   preserves  so   much  as  a 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  169 

lingering  doubt.  The  ceremonies  con- 
nected with  the  phallus,  and  those 
observed  in  the  worship  of  the  Bona 
Dea,  were  of  a  nature  that  no  virtue 
could  withstand.  Every  altar,  Juvenal 
said,  had  its  Clodius,  and  even  in 
Clodius'  absence  there  were  always 
those  breaths  of  Sapphic  song  that 
blew  through  Mitylene. 

It  is  just  that  absence  of  a  quality 
which  we  regard  as  an  added  grace; 
one,  parenthetically,  which  dowered 
the  world  with  nothing  less  than  a 
new  conception  of  beauty  that  makes 
it  difficult  to  picture  Rome.  Modern 
ink  has  acquired  Nero's  blush;  it 
comes  very  readily,  yet,  however  sen- 
sitive a  writer  may  be,  once  Roman 
history  is  before  him,  he  may  violate 
it  if  he  choose;  he  may  even  give  it  a 
child,  but  never  can  he  make  it  immac- 
culate.  He  may  skip,  indeed,  if  he 
wish;  and  it  is  because  he  has  skipped 


170  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

SO  often  that  hats  are  removed  when 
Augustus  is  mentioned.  The  rain  of 
fire  which  fell  on  the  cities  that  mir- 
rored their  towers  in  the  Bitter  Sea, 
might  just  as  well  have  fallen  on  him 
on  Vergil,  too,  on  Caligula,  Claud 
Nero,  Otho,  Vitellius,  Titus,  Domit- 
tian,  and  particularly  on  Trajan. 

As  lieutenant  in  the  latter's  trium- 
phant promenade,  was  a  nephew, 
^lius  Hadrianus,  a  young  man  for 
whom  Trajan's  wife  is  rumored  to  have 
had  more  than  a  platonic  affection, 
and  who  in  younger  days  was  num- 
bered among  Trajan's  mignons.  Dur- 
ing the  progress  of  that  promenade 
Trajan  fell  ill.  The  command  of  the 
troops  was  left  to  Hadrian,  and  Trajan 
started  for  Rome.  On  the  way  he 
died.  In  what  manner  is  not  known; 
his  wife,  however,  was  with  him,  and 
it  was  in  her  hand  that  a  letter  went 
to  the  senate  statins;  that  Trajan  had 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  171 

adopted  Hadrian  as  his  heir.     Trajan 
had    done  nothing  of  the  sort.     The 
idea  had  indeed  occurred  to  him,  but 
long   since   it    had    been    abandoned 
He  had  even  formally  selected  some 
one  else,  but  his  wife  was  with  him 
and  her  lover  commanded  the  troops 
The  lustre  of  the  purple,  always  daz 
zling,  had  fascinated  Hadrian's    eyes 
Did  he  steal  it?     One  may  conjecture 
yet  never  know.     In  any  event  it  was 
his,    and    he   folded  it  very  magnifi 
cently  about  him. 

Still  young,  a  trifle  over  thirty, 
handsome,  unusually  accomplished, 
grand  seigneur  to  his  finger-tips,  en- 
dowed with  a  manner  which  is 
rumored  to  have  been  one  of  great 
charm,  possessed  of  the  amplest  appre- 
ciation of  the  elegancies  of  life,  he 
had  precisely  the  figure  which  purple 
adorns.  But,  though  the  lustre  had 
fascinated,   he     too    knew   its    spell; 


172  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

and  presently  he  started  off  on  a  jour- 
ney  about  the  world,  which  lasted 
fifteen  years,  and  which,  when  ended, 
left  the  world  the  richer  for  his  pass- 
ing, decorated  with  the  monuments 
he  had  strewn.  Before  that  journey 
began,  at  the  earliest  rumor  of  Tra- 
jan's death,  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris 
awoke,  the  cinders  of  Nineveh  flamed. 
The  rivers  and  land  that  lay  between 
knew  that  their  conqueror  had  gone. 
Hadrian  knew  it  also,  and  knew  too 
that,  though  he  might  occupy  the 
warrior's  throne,  he  never  could  fill 
the  warrior's  place.  To  Armenia, 
Mesopotamia,  Assyria,  freedom  was 
restored.  Dacia  could  have  had  it  for 
the  asking.  But  over  Dacia  the  toga 
had  been  thrown;  it  was  as  Roman  as 
Gaul.  A  corner  of  it  is  Roman  still; 
the  Roumanians  are  there.  But 
though  Dacia  was  quiet,  in  its  neigh- 
borhood    the      restless      Sarmatians 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  173 

prowled  and  threatened.  Hadrian, 
who  had  already  written  a  book  on 
tactics,  knew  at  once  how  to  act. 
Domitian's  policy  was  before  him;  he 
followed  the  precedent,  and  paid  the 
Sarmatians  to  be  still.  It  requires 
little  acumen  to  see  that  when  Rome 
permitted  herself  to  be  blackmailed 
the  end  was  near. 

For  the  time  being,  however,  there 
was  peace,  and  in  its  interest  Hadrian 
set  out  on  that  unequalled  journey 
over  a  land  that  was  his.  Had  fate 
relented,  Trajan  could  have  made  a 
wider  one  still.  But  in  Trajan  was 
the  soldier  merely;  when  he  journeyed 
it  was  with  the  sword.  In  Hadrian 
was  the  dilettante,  the  erudite  too; 
he  traveled  not  to  conquer,  but  to 
learn,  to  satisfy  an  insatiable  curiosity, 
for  self-improvement,  for  glory  too. 
Behind  him  was  an  army,  not  of  sol- 
diers,   but    of   masons,    captained  by 


174  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

architects,  artists  and  engineers.  Did 
a  site  please  him,  there  was  a  temple 
at  once,  or  if  not  that,  then  a  bridge, 
an  aqueduct,  a  library,  a  new  fashion, 
sovereignty  even,  but  everywhere  the 
spectacle  of  an  emperor  in  flesh  and 
blood.  For  the  first  time  the  provin- 
ces were  able  to  understand  that  a 
Caesar  was  not  necessarily  a  brute,  a 
phantom  and  a  god. 

It  would  have  been  interesting  to 
have  made  one  of  that  court  of  poets 
and  savants  that  surrounded  him;  to 
have  dined  with  him  in  Paris,  eaten 
oysters  in  London ;  sat  with  him  while 
he  watched  that  wall  go  up  before  the 
Scots,  and  then  to  have  passed  down 
again  through  a  world  still  young — a 
world  beautiful,  ornate,  unutilitarian; 
a  world  to  which  trams,  advertise- 
ments and  telegraph  poles  had  not  yet 
come;  a  world  that  still  had  illus- 
ions,   myths    and    mysteries;   one     in 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  175 

which  religion  and  poetry  went  hand 
hand  in  hand — a  world  without  news- 
papers, hypocrisy  and  cant. 

Hadrian,  doubtless,  enjoyed  it.  He 
was  young  enough  to  have  enthusi- 
asms and  to  show  them;  he  was  one 
of  the  best  read  men  of  the  day ;  he  was 
poet,  painter,  sculptor,  musician,  eru- 
dite and  emperor  in  one.  Of  course 
he  enjoyed  it.  The  world,  over  which 
he  traveled,  was  his,  not  by  virtue  of 
the  purple  alone,  but  because  of  his 
knowledge  of  it.  The  prince  is  not 
necessarily  cosmopolitan;  the  historian 
and  antiquarian  are.  Hadrian  was  an 
early  Quinet,  an  earlier  Champollion; 
always  the  thinker,  sometimes  the 
cook.  And  to  those  in  his  suite  it 
must  have  been  a  sight  very  unique  to 
see  a  Csesar  who  had  published  his 
volume  of  erotic  verse,  just  as  you  or 
I  might  do;  who  had  hunted  lions,  not 
in  the  arena,  but  in  Africa,  make  re- 


176  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

searches  on  the  plain  where  Troy  had 
been,  and  a  supreme  of  sow's  breast, 
peacock,  pheasant,  ham  and  boar, 
which  he  called  Pentapharmarch,  and 
which  he  offered  as  he  had  his  Cata- 
criani — the  erotic  verse — as  something 
original  and  nice. 

Insatiably  inquisitive,  verifying"  a 
history  that  he  was  preparing  in  the 
lands  which  gave  that  history  birth, 
he  passed  through  Egypt  and  Asia, 
questioning  sphinxes,  the  cerements 
of  kings,  the  arcana  of  the  temples; 
deciphering  the  sacred  books,  arguing 
with  magi,  interrogating  the  stars. 
For  the  thinker,  after  the  fashion  of 
the  hour,  was  astrologer  too,  and  one 
of  the  few  anecdotes  current  concern- 
ing him  is  in  regard  to  a  habit  he  had 
of  drawing  up  on  the  31st  of  Decem- 
ber the  events  of  the  coming  year. 
After  consulting  the  stars  on  that  31st 
of    December  which  occurred  in  the 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  177 

twenty-second  year  of  his  reign,  he 
prepared  a  calendar  which  extended 
only  to  the  loth  of  July.  On  that  day 
he  died. 

The  calendar  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  otherwise  serviceable.  It  was  in 
Bithynia  he  found  a  shepherd  of  such 
beauty  that  no  one  who  has  looked  at 
his  bust  has  looked  unmoved.  It  is 
unearthly,  a  perfection  of  feature  which 
suggests  neither  heaven  nor  hell,  but 
some  planet  where  the  atmosphere  dif- 
fers from  ours;  where  it  is  pink,  per- 
haps, or  faintly  ochre;  where  birth  and 
death  have  forms  higher  than  our  own. 

Hadrian,  captivated,  led  the  lad  in 
leash.  The  facts  concerning  that  epi- 
sode have  been  so  frequently  given 
that  the  repetition  is  needless  here. 
Besides,  the  point  is  elsewhere.  Pres- 
ently the  lad  fell  overboard.  Hadrian 
lost  a  valet,  Rome  an  emperor,  and 
Olympus  a  god.      But  in  attempting 

la 


178  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

to  deify  the  lost  lackey,  the  grief  of 
Hadrian  was  so  spontaneous,  so  sin- 
cere, that  it  is  permissible  to  fancy 
that  the  lad's  death  was  not  one  of 
those  events  which  the  emperor-astrol- 
oger noted  beforehand  on  his  calendar. 
The  lad  was  decently  buried,  the  Nile 
gave  up  her  dead,  and  on  the  banks  a 
fair  city  rose,  one  that  had  its  temples, 
priests,  altars  and  shrines;  a  city  that 
worshipped  a  star,  and  called  that  star 
Antinous.  Hadrian  then  could  have 
congratulated  himself.  Even  Caligula 
would  have  envied  him.  He  had  done 
his  worst;  he  had  deified  not  a  lad,  but 
a  lust.  And  not  for  the  moment  alone. 
A  half  century  later  Tertullian  noted 
that  the  worship  still  endured,  and  sub- 
sequently the  Alexandrine  Clement 
discovered  consciences  that  Antinous 
had  reproached. 

Antinous,  deified,  was  presently  for- 
got.    A  young  Roman,  wonderfully 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  179 

beautiful,  Dion  says,  yet  singularly 
effeminate;  a  youth  who  could  barely 
carry  a  shield;  who  slept  between  rose- 
leaves  and  lilies;  who  was  an  artist 
withal;  a  poet  who  had  written  lines 
that  Martial  might  have  mistaken  for 
his  own,  Cejonius  Verus  by  name,  suc- 
ceeded the  Bithynian  shepherd.  Had- 
rian, who  would  have  adopted  Antin- 
ous,  adopted  Verus  in  his  stead.  But 
Hadrian  was  not  happy  in  his  choice. 
Verus  died,  and  singularly  enough, 
Hadrian  selected  as  future  emperor 
the  one  ruler  against  whom  history  has 
not  a  reproach,  Pius  Antonin. 

Meanwhile  the  journey  continued. 
The  Thousand  and  One  Nights  were  re- 
alized then  if  ever.  The  beauty  of  the 
world  was  at  its  apogee,  the  glory  of 
Rome  as  well ;  and  through  secrets  and 
marvels  Hadrian  strolled,  note-book  in 
hand,  his  eyes  unwearied,  his  curiosity 
unsatiated  still.     To  pleasure  him  the 


180  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

intervales  took  on  a  fairer  glow;  cities 
decked  themselves  anew^,  the  temples 
unveiled  their  mysteries;  and  when  he 
passed  to  the  intervales  liberty  came; 
to  the  cities,  sovereignty;  to  the  tem- 
ples, shrines.  The  world  rose  to  him 
as  a  woman  greets  her  lover.  His 
travels  were  not  fatigues;  they  were 
delights,  in  which  nations  participated, 
and  of  which  the  memories  endure  as 
though  enchanted  still. 

It  would  have  been  interesting,  no 
doubt,  to  have  dined  with  him  in 
Paris;  to  have  quarried  lions  in  their 
African  fens;  to  have  heard  archaic 
hymns  ripple  through  the  rushes  of 
the  Nile;  to  have  lounged  in  the 
Academe,  to  have  scaled  Parnassus, 
and  sailed  the  ^gian  sea ;  but,  a  history 
and  an  arm-chair  aiding,  the  traveler 
has  but  to  close  his  eyes  and  the  past 
returns.  Without  disturbing  so  much 
as  a  shirt-box,   he   may   repeat   that 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  181 

promenade.  Triremes  have  foundered ; 
litters  are  out  of  date;  painted  ele- 
phants are  no  more;  the  sky  has 
changed,  climates  with  it;  there  are 
colors,  as  there  are  arts,  that  have 
gone  from  us  forever;  there  are  deso- 
late plains,  where  green  and  yellow 
was;  the  shriek  of  steam  where  gods 
have  strayed ;  advertisements  in  sacred 
groves ;  Baedekers  in  ruins  that  never 
heard  an  atheist's  voice;  solitudes 
where  there  were  splendors ;  the  snarl 
of  jackals  where  once  were  birds  and 
bees — yet,  history  and  the  arm-chair 
aiding,  it  all  returns.  Any  traveler 
may  follow  in  Hadrian's  steps;  he  is 
stayed  but  once — on  the  threshold  of 
the  Temple  of  Eleusis.  It  is  there 
history  gropes,  impotent  and  blind, 
and  it  is  there  the  interest  of  that 
journey  culminated. 

Beyond  the  episode  connected  with 
Antinous,    Hadrian's     journey    was 


182  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

marked  by  another,  one  which  occurred 
in  Judaea.  Both  were  infamous,  no 
doubt,  but,  what  is  more  to  the  point, 
both  mark  the  working  of  the  poison 
in  the  purple  that  he  bore. 

Since  Titus  had  gone,  despairful 
Judaea  had  taken  heart  again.  Hope 
in  that  land  was  inextinguishable. 
The  walls  of  Jerusalem  were  still 
standing;  in  the  Temple  the  offices 
continued.  Though  Rome  remained, 
there  was  Israel  too.  Passing  that 
way  one  afternoon,  Hadrian  mused. 
The  city  affected  him;  the  site  was 
superb.  And  as  he  mused  it  occurred 
to  him  that  Jerusalem  was  less  har- 
monious to  the  ear  than  Hadrianopolis ; 
that  the  Temple  occupied  a  position 
on  which  a  Capitol  would  look  far 
better;  in  brief,  that  Jehovah  might 
be  advantageously  replaced  by  Jove. 
The  army  of  masons  that  were  ever 
at  his  heels  were  set  to  work  at  once. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  183 

They  had  received  similar  orders  and 
performed     similar    tasks     so    often 
that   they   could   not    fancy    anyone 
would  object.     The  Jews  did.     They 
fought  as  they  had  never  fought    be- 
fore;   they    fought   for    three    years 
against   a  Nebuchadnezzar  who  cre- 
ated torrents  of    blood  so   abundant 
that   stones   were   carried   for  miles, 
and  who  left  corpses  enough  to  fer- 
tilize  the   land   for   a   decade.     The 
survivors  were  sold.  Those  for  whom 
no   purchasers    could   be   found    had 
their   heads    amputated.      Jerusalem 
was   razed  to  the  ground.     The  site 
of  the  Temple  was  furrowed  by  the 
plow,  sown  with  salt,  and  in  place  of 
the  City  of  David  rose  ^lia  Capito- 
lina,  a  miniature  Rome,  whose  gates, 
save  on   one    day    in  the  year,  Jews 
were  forbidden  under  penalty  of  death 
to   pass,  were   forbidden  to  look  at, 
and  over  which  were  images  of  swine, 


184  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

pigs  with  scornful  snouts,  the  feet 
turned  inward,  the  tail  twisted  like  a 
lie. 

It  was  not  honorable  warfare,  but 
it  was  effective;  then,  too,  it  was 
Hadrianesque,  the  mad  insult  of  a 
madman  to  a  race  as  mad  as  he.  The 
purple  had  done  its  work.  History 
has  left  the  rise  of  this  emperor  con- 
jectural; his  fall  is  written  in  blood. 
As  he  began  he  ended,  a  poet  and 
a  beast. 

Presently  he  was  in  Rome.  It  was 
not  homesickness  that  took  him  there; 
he  was  far  too  cosmopolitan  to  suffer 
from  any  such  malady  as  that.  It 
was  the  accumulations  of  a  fifteen-year 
excursion  through  the  metropoli  of 
art  which  demanded  a  gallery  of  their 
own.  Another  with  similar  tastes  and 
similar  power  might  have  ordered 
everything  which  pleasured  his  eye 
to  be  carted  to  Rome,  but  in  his  qual- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  185 

ity  of  artifex  omnipotens  Hadrian 
embellished  and  never  sacked.  There 
were  painters  and  sculptors  enough 
in  that  army  at  his  heels,  and  what- 
ever appealed  to  him  was  copied  on 
the  spot.  So  much  was  copied  that 
a  park  of  ten  square  miles  was  just 
large  enough  to  form  the  open-air 
museum  which  he  had  designed,  one 
which  centuries  of  excavation  have 
not  exhausted  yet. 

The  museum  became  a  mad-house. 
Hadrian  was  ill;  tired  in  mind  and 
body  smitten  with  imperalia.  It  was 
then  the  young  Verus  died,  leaving 
for  a  wonder  a  child  behind,  and  more 
wonderful  still,  Antonin  was  adopted. 
Through  Rome,  meanwhile,  terror 
stalked.  Hadrian,  in  search  of  a 
remedy  against  his  increasing  confus- 
ion of  mind,  his  visible  weakness  of 
body,  turned  from  physicians  to  ora- 
cles; from  them  to  magic,  and  then  to 


186  IMPERIAL  PURPLE, 

blood.  He  decimated  the  senate. 
Soldiers,  freedmen,  citizens,  anybody 
and  everybody  were  ordered  off  to 
death.  He  tried  to  kill  himself  and 
failed;  he  tried  again,  wondering,  no 
doubt,  why  he  who  commanded  death 
for  others  could  not  command  it  for 
himself.  Presently  he  succeeded,  and 
Antonin — the  pious  Antonin,  as  the 
senate  called  him — marshalled  from 
cellars  and  crypts  the  senators  and 
citizens  whom  Hadrian  had  ordered 
to  be  destroyed. 


VIII. 

FAUSTINE. 


VIII. 

FAUSTINE. 

Anyone  who  has  loitered  a  mo- 
ment among  the  statues  in  the  Salle 
des  Antonins  at  the  Louvre  will  recall 
the  bust  of  the  Empress  Faustine.  It 
stands  near  the  entrance,  coercing  the 
idler  to  remove  his  hat;  to  stop  a  mo- 
ment, to  gaze  and  dream.  The  face 
differs  from  that  which  Mr.  Swinburne 
has  described.  In  the  poise  of  the 
head,  in  the  expression  of  the  lips, 
particularly  in  the  features  which,  save 
the  low  brow,  are  not  of  the  Roman 
type,  there  is  a  commingling  of  just 
that  loveliness  and  melancholy  which 
must  have  come  to  Psyche  when  she 
lost  her  god.  In  the  corners  of  the 
mouth,  in  the  droop  of    the  eyelids, 


190  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

in  the  moulding  of  the  chin,  you  may 
see  that  rarity — beauty  and  intellect  in 
one — and  with  it  the  heightening 
shadow  of  an  eternal  regret.  Before 
her  Marcus  Aurelius,  her  husband, 
stands,  decked  with  the  purple,  with 
all  the  splendor  of  the  imperator.,  his 
beard  in  overlapping  curls,  his  ques- 
tioning eyes  dilated.  Beyond  is  her 
daughter,  Lucille,  less  fair  than  the 
mother,  a  healthy  girl  of  the  dairy- 
maid type.  Near  by  is  the  son.  Corn- 
modus.  Across  the  hall  is  Lucius 
Verus,  the  husband  of  Lucille;  in  a 
corner,  Antonin,  Faustine's  father,  and, 
more  remotely,  his  wife.  Together 
they  form  quite  a  family  group,  and 
to  the  average  tourist  they  must  seem 
a  thoroughly  respectable  lot,  Anto- 
nin certainly  was  respectable.  He  was 
the  first  emperor  who  declined  to  be  a 
brute.  Referring  to  his  wife  he  said 
that  he  would  rather  be  with  her  in  a 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  191 

desert  than  without  her  in  a  palace ; 
the  speech,  parenthetically,  of  a  man 
who,  though  he  could  have  cited  that 
little  Greek  princess,  Nausicaa,  as  a 
precedent,  was  too  well-bred  to  per- 
mit so  much  as  a  fringe  of  his  house- 
hold linen  to  flutter  in  public.  Be- 
sides, at  his  hours,  he  was  a  poet,  and 
it  is  said  that  if  a  poet  tell  a  lie  twice 
he  will  believe  it.  Antonin  so  often 
declared  his  wife  to  be  a  charming 
person  that  in  the  end  no  doubt  he 
thought  so.  She  was  not  charming, 
however,  or  if  she  were,  her  charm 
was  not  that  of  virtue. 

It  was  in  full  sight  of  this  lady's  in- 
consequences that  Faustine  was  edu- 
cated. Wherever  she  looked,  the 
candors  of  her  girlhood  were  violated. 
The  phallus  then  was  omnipresent, 
lamblicus,  not  the  novelist,  but  the  phi- 
losopher, has  much  to  say  on  the  sub- 
ject; so  has  Arnobius  in  the  Adversus 


192  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

gentes^  and  Lactance  in  the  De  falsa 
religione.  If  Juvenal,  Martial,  Pe- 
tronius,  are  more  reticent,  it  is  because 
they  were  not  Fathers  of  the  Church, 
nor  yet  antiquarians.  No  one  among 
us  exacts  a  description  of  a  spire. 
The  phallus  was  as  common  to  them, 
commoner  even.  It  was  on  the  coins, 
on  the  doors,  in  the  gardens.  As  a 
preservative  against  Envy  it  hung  from 
children's  necks.  On  sun-dials  and 
water-clocks  it  marked  the  flight  of 
time.  The  vestals  worshipped  it.  At 
weddings  it  was  used  in  a  manner 
which  need  not  be  described. 

It  was  from  such  surroundings  that 
Faustine  stepped  into  the  arms  of  the 
severe  and  stately  prince  whom  her 
father  had  chosen.  That  Marcus 
Aurelius  adored  her  is  certain.  His 
note-book  shows  it,  A  more  tender- 
hearted and  perfect  lover  romance  may 
show,   but  history  cannot.     He  must 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  193 

have  been  the  quintessence  of  refine- 
ment, a  thoroughbred  to  his  finger- 
tips; one  for  whom  that  purple  mantle 
was  too  gaudy,  and  yet  who  bore  it, 
as  he  bore  everything  else,  in  that 
self-abnegatory  spirit  which  the 
higher  reaches  of  philosophy  bring. 
He  was  of  that  rare  type  that  never 
complains  and  always  consoles. 

After  Antonin's  death,  his  hours 
ceased  to  be  his  own.  On  the 
Euphrates  there  was  the  wildest  dis- 
order. To  the  north  new  races  were 
pushing  nations  over  the  Danube  and 
the  Rhine.  From  the  catacombs  Christ 
was  emerging;  from  the  Nile,  Serapis. 
The  empire  was  in  disarray.  Antonin 
had  provided  his  son-in-law  with  a 
coadjutor,  Lucius  Verus,  the  son  of 
Hadrian's  mignon,  a  magnificent  scoun- 
drel; a  tall,  broad-shouldered  athlete, 
with  a  skin  as  fresh  as  a  girl's  and 
thick   curly   hair,  which  he   covered 

13 


lU  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

with  a  powder  of  gold;  a  vi'veur, 
whose  suppers  are  famous  still;  whose 
guests  were  given  the  slaves  that 
served  them,  the  plate  off  which  they 
had  eaten,  the  cups  from  which  they 
had  drunk — cups  of  gold,  cups  of  sil- 
ver, jeweled  cups,  cups  from  Alexan- 
dria, murrhine  vases  filled  with  nard — 
cars  and  litters  to  go  home  with, 
mules  with  silver  trappings  and  negro 
muleteers.  Capitolinus  says  that, 
while  the  guests  feasted,  sometimes 
the  magnificent  Verus  got  drunk,  and 
was  carried  to  bed  in  a  coverlid,  or 
else,  the  red  feather  aiding,  turned 
out  and  fought  the  watch. 

It  was  this  splendid  individual  to 
whom  Marcus  Aurelius  intrusted  the 
Euphrates.  They  had  been  brought 
up  together,  sharing  each  others 
tutors,  writing  themes  for  the  same  in- 
structor, both  meanwhile  adolescently 
enamored  of  the  fair  Faustine.     It  was 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  195 

to  Marcus  she  was  given,  the  empire 
as  a  dower;  and  when  that  dower 
passed  into  his  hands,  he  could  think 
of  nothing  more  equitable  than  to  ask 
Verus  to  share  it  with  him.  Verus 
was  not  stupid  enough  to  refuse,  and 
at  the  hour  when  the  Parthians  turned 
ugly,  he  needed  little  urging  to  set  out 
for  the  East,  dreaming,  as  he  did  so, 
of  creating  there  an  empire  that  should 
be  wholly  his. 

At  that  time  Faustine  must  have 
been  at  least  twenty-eight,  possibly 
thirty.  There  were  matrons  who  had 
not  seen  their  fifteenth  year,  and 
Faustine  had  been  married  young. 
Her  daughter,  Lucille,  was  nubile. 
Presently  Verus,  or  rather  his  lieu- 
tenants, succeeded,  and  the  girl 
was  betrothed  to  him.  There  was  a 
festival,  of  course,  games  in  abun- 
dance, and  plenty  of  blood. 

It  would  have  been    interesting   to 


196  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

have  seen  her  that  day,  the  iron  ring 
of  betrothal  on  her  finger,  her  brother, 
Commodus,  staring  at  the  arrange- 
ment of  her  hair,  her  mother  prettily 
perplexed,  her  father  signing  orders 
which  messengers  brought  and  dis- 
patched, while  the  sand  took  on  a 
deeper  red,  and  Rome  shrieked  its 
delight.  Yes,  it  would  have  been 
interesting  and  typical  of  the  hour. 
Her  hair  in  the  ten  tresses  which 
were  symbolic  of  a  fiancee^ s  Innocence, 
must  have  amused  that  brute  of  a 
brother  of  hers,  and  the  iron  ring  on 
the  fourth  finger  of  her  left  hand 
must  have  given  Faustine  food  for 
thought;  the  vestals,  in  their  immac- 
ulate robes,  must  have  gazed  at  her 
in  curious,  sisterly  ways,  and  because 
of  her  fresh  beauty  surely  there 
were  undertones  of  applause.  Should 
her  father  disappear  she  would 
make  a   gracious  imperatrix    indeed. 


IMPEHIAL  PURPLE.  197 

But,  meanwhile,  there  was  Faus- 
tine,  and  at  sight  of  her  legends  of 
old  imperial  days  returned.  She  was 
not  Messalina  yet,  but  in  the  stables 
there  were  jockeys  whose  sudden 
wealth  surprised  no  one;  in  the  arenas 
there  were  gladiators  that  fought,  not 
for  liberty,  nor  for  death,  but  for  the 
caresses  of  her  eyes;  in  the  side-scenes 
there  were  mimes  who  spoke  of  her;' 
there  were  senators  who  boasted  in 
their  cups,  and  in  the  theatre  Rome 
laughed  colossally  at  the  catchword 
of  her  amours. 

Marcus  Aurelius  then  was  occu 
pied  with  affairs  of  state.  In  simi- 
lar circumstances  so  was  Claud — 
Messalina^s  husband — so,  too,  was  An- 
tonin.  But  Claud  was  an  imbecile, 
Antonin  a  man  of  the  world,  while 
Marcus  Aurelius  was  a  philosopher. 
When  fate  links  a  woman  to  any  one 
of  these  varieties  of   the  husband,  she 


198  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

is  blessed  indeed.  Faustine  was  par- 
ticularly favored. 

The  stately  prince  was  not  alone  a 
philosopher — a  calling,  by  the  way, 
which  was  common  enough  then,  and 
has  become  commoner  since — he  was 
a  philosopher  who  believed  in  philos- 
ophy, a  rarity  then  as  now.  The  ex- 
act trend  of  his  thought  is  difficult  to 
define.  His  note-book  is  filled  with 
hesitations;  materialism  had  its  allure- 
ments, so  also  had  pantheism;  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  Pyrrhonic  suspension 
of  judgment  were  clear  to  him  too;  ac- 
cording to  the  frame  of  mind  in  which 
he  wrote,  you  might  fancy  him  an  ag- 
nostic, again  an  akosmist,  sometimes 
both,  but  always  the  ethical  result  is 
the  same. 

"Revenge  yourself  on  your  enemy 
in  not  resembling  him.  Forgive;  for- 
give always;  die  forgiving.  Be  in- 
dulgent to  the  wrong-doer;  be  com- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  199 

passionate  to  him;  tell  him  how  he 
should  act ;  speak  to  him  without  anger, 
without  sarcasm;  speak  to  him  affec- 
tionately. Besides,  what  do  you  know 
of  his  wrong -doing?  Are  all  his 
thoughts  familiar  to  you?  May  there 
not  be  something  that  justifies  him? 
And  you,  are  you  entirely  free  from 
reproach?  Have  you  never  done 
wrong?  And  if  not,  was  it  fear  that 
restrained  you?  Was  it  pride,  or 
what?" 

In  the  synoptic  gospels  similar 
recommendations  appear.  But  where 
are  the  Christians  that  observe  them? 
There  may  be  much  joy  in  heaven 
over  the  sinner  that  repents ;  in  Christ- 
endom the  joy  is  at  his  downfall.  We 
adore  the  Master.  His  precepts  are 
grateful  to  us.  But  does  it  not  seem 
that  we  find  the  adoration  sufficient? 
Charity  is  the  New  Testament  told  in 
a  word.   There  is  not  a  Christian  com- 


200  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

munity  that  does  not  acknowledge  its 
beauty,  and  there  is  not  one  that  prac- 
tices it.  But  Christians  are  not  phi- 
losophers. The  latter  do  what  good 
they  may  without  hope  of  reward,  be- 
cause they  regard  evil  as  a  part  of  the 
universal  order  of  things,  one  which 
we  have  neither  the  right  nor  the  abil- 
ity to  condemn;  because  vice  is  an 
error  of  the  understanding,  one  which  it 
is  idle  to  blame,  yet  righteous  to  rectify. 
From  whatever  source  such  a  tenet 
springs,  whether  from  materialism, 
stoicism,  pyrrhonism,  epicureanism, 
atheism  even,  is  of  small  matter;  it  is 
a  tenet  which  is  honorable  to  the  holder 
and  gracious  too.  This  sceptered 
misanthrope  possessed  it,  and  it  was 
in  that  his  wife  was  blessed.  Years 
later  he  died,  forgiving  her  in  silence, 
praising  her  aloud.  Claud,  referring 
to  Messalina,  shouted  through  the 
Forum  that  the  fate  which  destined  him 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  201 

to  marry  impure  women  destined  him 
to  punish  them.  Marcus  AureHus  said 
nothing.  He  did  not  know  what  fate 
destined  him  to  do,  but  he  did  know 
that  philosophy  taught  him  to  forgive. 
The  ability  to  forgive,  however,  is  one 
which  is  an  attribute  only  of  the  great. 
Small  minds  hate  on. 

It  was  this  greatness  that  first  per- 
plexed Faustine.  She  was  restless, 
frivolous,  perhaps  also  a  trifle  de- 
praved. Frivolous  because  all 
women  were,  depraved  because  her 
mother  was,  and  restless  because  of 
the  curiosity  that  inflammable  imagi- 
nations share — in  brief,  a  Roman 
princess.  Her  husband  differed  from 
the  Roman  prince.  His  youth  had 
not  been  entirely  circumspect;  he,  too, 
had  his  curiosities,  but  they  were 
satisfied,  he  had  found  that  they 
stained.  When  he  married  he  was 
already  the  thinker ;  doubtless,  he  was 


202  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

tiresome;  he  could  have  had  Httle 
small-talk,  and  his  hours  of  love-mak- 
ing must  have  been  rare.  Presently 
the  affairs  of  state  engrossed  him. 
Faustine  was  left  to  herself;  save  a 
friend  of  her  own  sex,  a  woman  can 
have  no  worse  companion.  She,  too, 
discovered  she  had  curiosities.  A 
gladiator  passed  that  way — then- 
Rome;  then  Lesbos;  then  the  Lampsa- 
cene.  "You  are  my  husband's  mis- 
tress," her  daughter  cried  to  her  one 
day.  "And  you,"  the  mother  an- 
swered, "are  your  brother's."  Even 
in  the  aridity  of  a  chronicle  the 
accusation  and  rejoinder  are  re- 
volting. Fancy  what  they  must 
have  been  when  mother  and  daughter 
hissed  them  in  each  others  teeth. 
Whether  the  argument  continued  is 
immaterial.  Both  could  have  claimed 
the  sanction  of  religion.  In  those 
days   a   sin   was  a  prayer.     Religion 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  208 

was  then,  as  it  always  had  been, 
purely  political.  With  the  individ- 
ual, with  his  happiness  or  aspirations,  it 
concerned  itself  not  at  all.  It  was  the 
prosperity  of  the  empire,  its  peace  and 
immortality,  for  which  sacrifices  were 
made,  and  libations  offered.  The  god 
of  Rome  was  Rome,  and  religion  was 
patriotism.  The  antique  virtues, 
courage  in  war,  moderation  in  peace, 
and  honor  at  all  times,  were  civic,  not 
personal.  It  was  the  state  that  had  a 
soul,  not  the  individual.  Man  was 
ephemeral;  it  was  the  nation  that  en- 
dured. It  was  the  permanence  of  its 
grandeur  that  was  important,  nothing 
else. 

To  insure  that  permanence  each 
citizen  labored.  As  for  the  citizen, 
death  was  near,  and  he  hastened  to 
live;  before  the  roses  could  fade  he 
wreathed  himself  with  them.  Immor- 
tality to  him  was  in  his  descendants, 


204  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  continuation  of  his  name,  respect 
to  his  ashes.  Any  other  form  of  future 
Hfe  was  a  speculation,  infrequent  at 
that.  In  anterior  epochs  Fright  had 
peopled  Tartarus,  but  Fright  had 
gone.  The  El3'sian  Fields  were 
vague,  wearisome  to  contemplate; 
even  metempsychosis  had  no  adher- 
ents. "After  death,"  said  Caesar, 
"there  is  nothing,"  and  all  the  world 
agreed  with  him.  The  hour,  too,  in 
which  three  thousand  gods  had  not  a 
single  atheist,  had  gone,  never  to  re- 
turn. Old  faiths  had  crumbled. 
None  the  less  was  Rome  the  abridge- 
ment of  every  superstition.  The  gods 
of  the  conquered  had  always  been 
part  of  her  spoils.  The  Pantheon  had 
become  a  lupanar  of  divinities  that 
presided  over  birth,  and  whose  rites 
were  obscene;  an  abattoir  of  gods 
that  presided  over  death,  and  whose 
worship  was  gore.     To  please  them 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  206 

was  easy.  Blood  and  debauchery 
was  all  that  was  required.  That 
the  upper  classes  had  no  faith  in 
them  at  all  goes  without  the  need 
of  telling;  the  atmosphere  of  their 
atriums  dripped  with  metaphysics. 
But  in  the  Forum,  in  the  circus,  amphi- 
theatres; in  the  temples,  porticoes  and 
thick,  wide  streets — in  short,  wher- 
ever the  masses  congregated — the 
gods  were  not  only  officially  revered, 
they  were  believed  in,  and  so  thor- 
oughly that,  had  a  sceptic  attempted 
to  air  his  scepticism  in  public,  with 
that  sceptic  it  would  not  have  fared 
well.  Of  the  atheism  of  the  upper 
classes  the  people  knew  nothing;  they 
clung  piously  to  a  faith  which  held  a 
theological  justification  of  every  sin, 
and  in  the  temples  fervent  pra3^ers 
were  murmured,  not  for  future  happi- 
ness, for  that  was  unobtainable,  nor 
yet   for  wisdom  or  virtue,  for  those 


a06  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

things  the  gods  neither  granted  nor 
possessed;  the  prayers  were  that  the 
gods  would  favor  the  suppHant  in  his 
hatreds  and  in  his  lusts. 

Such  was  Rome  when  Verus  re- 
turned to  wed  Lucille.  Before  his 
car  the  phallus  swung;  behind  it  was 
the  pest.  A  little  before,  the  Tiber 
overflowed.  Presently,  in  addition  to 
the  pest,  famine  came.  It  was  patent 
to  everyone  that  the  gods  were  vexed. 
There  was  blasphem.y  somewhere, 
and  the  Christians  were  tossed  to  the 
beasts.  Faustine  watched  them  die. 
At  first  they  were  to  her  as  other 
criminals,  but  immediately  a  differ- 
ence was  discerned.  They  met  death, 
not  with  grace,  perhaps,  but  with  ex- 
altation. They  entered  the  arena  as 
though  it  were  an  enchanted  garden, 
the  color  of  emerald,  where  dreams 
came  true.  Faustine  questioned. 
They  were  enemies  of  state,  she  was 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  207 

told.  The  reply  left  her  perplexed, 
and  she  questioned  again.  It  was 
then  her  eyes  became  inhabited 
by  regret.  The  past  was  hideous; 
she  tried  to  put  it  from  her,  but  re- 
morse is  physical;  it  declines  to  be 
dismissed.  She  would  have  killed 
herself,  but  she  no  longer  dared.  The 
past  was  hideous,  but  in  the  future 
there  was  light.  In  some  ray  of  it 
she  must  have  walked,  for  when  at  the 
foot  of  Mt.  Taurus,  in  a  little  Cappa- 
docian  village,  years  later,  she  died, 
her  lips  were  glued  to  the  cross. 


IX. 

THE    AGONY. 


14 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  211 


IX. 
THE    AGONY. 

The  high  virtues  are  not  complais- 
ant, it  is  the  cad  the  canaille  adore. 
In  spite  of  everything,  Nero  had  been 
beloved  by  the  masses.  For  years 
there  were  roses  on  his  tomb.  Under 
Vespasian  there  was  an  impostor  whom 
Greece  and  Asia  ^^cclaimed  in  his 
name.  The  memory  of  his  festivals 
was  unforgetable ;  regret  for  him  re- 
fused to  be  stilled.  He  was  more 
than  a  god;  he  was  a  tradition.  His 
second  advent  was  confidently  ex- 
pected; the  Jews  believed  in  his  resur- 
rection; to  the  Christian  he  had  never 
died,  and  suddenly  he  reappeared. 

Rome  had  declined  to  accept  the  old 
world  tenet  that  the  soul  has  its  avat- 


212  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

ars,  yet,  when  Commodus  sauntered 
from  that  distant  sepulchre,  into 
which,  poison  aiding,  he  had  placed 
his  putative  father,  Rome  felt  that 
the  Egyptians  were  wiser  than  Xhty 
looked;  that  the  soul  did  migrate,  and 
that  in  the  blue  eyes  of  the  young 
emperor  Nero's  spirit  shone. 

Herodian,  who  has  written  very 
agreeably  on  the  subject,  describes 
him  as  another  Prince  Charming. 
His  hair,  which  was  very  fair,  glis- 
tened like  gold  in  the  sun;  he  was 
slender,  not  at  all  effeminate,  exceed- 
ingly graceful,  exceedingly  gracious; 
endowed  with  the  promptest  blush, 
with  the  best  intentions;  studious  of 
the  interests  of  his  people;  glad  of 
advice^  seeking  it  even;  courteous  and 
deferential  to  the  senate  and  his 
father's  friends — in  short,  an  adoles- 
cent Nero — a  trifle  more  guileful, 
however;  already  a  parricide, a comed- 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  213 

ian  as  well;  one  who  in  a  moment 
would  toss  the  mask  aside  and  disclose 
the  mongrel;  the  offspring,  not  of  an 
empress  and  an  emperor,  but  the  tiger- 
cub  that  Faustine  had  got  by  a 
gladiator. 

The  tender-hearted  philosopher,  who 
in  a  campaign  against  some  fretful 
Teutons,  had  taken  Commodus  with 
him,  knew  that  he  was  not  his  son; 
knew,  too,  when  the  agon}'  seized  him, 
from  whose  hand  the  agony  came;  but 
in  earlier  life  he  had  jotted  in  his  note- 
book, "Forgive,  forgive  always;  die 
forgiving;"  and,  as  he  forgave  the 
mother,  so  he  forgave  the  child,  rec- 
ommending him  with  his  last  breath 
to  the  army  and  to  Rome. 

As  the  people  had  loved  Nero,  so 
did  the  aristocracy  love  Marcus  Aure- 
lius;  his  foster-father  Antonin  ex- 
cepted, he  was  the  only  gentleman 
that  had  sat  on  the  throne.  No  wonder 


214  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

they  loved  him;  and  seeing  this  early 
edition  of  the  prince  in  the  fairy  tale 
emerge  from  the  bogs  of  Germany, 
his  fair  face  haloed  by  the  glisten  and 
gold  of  his  hair,  hearts  went  out  to 
him;  the  wish  of  his  putative  father 
was  ratified,  and  the  son  of  a  gladia- 
tor was  emperor  of  Rome. 

Lampridus — or  Spartian  was  it? 
The  title-page  bears  Lampridus' 
name,  but  there  is  some  doubt  as  to 
the  authorship.  However;  whoever 
made  the  abridgement  of  the  life  of 
Commodus  which  appears  among  the 
chronicles  of  the  Scriftores  HistoricB 
AufTustce^  says  that  before  his  birth 
Faustine  dreamed  she  had  engendered 
a  serpent.  It  is  not  impossible  that 
Faustine  had  been  reading  Ctzias, 
and  had  stumbled  over  his  account  of 
the  Martichoras,  a  serpent  with  a 
woman's  face  and  the  talons  of  a  bird 
of  prey.   For  it  was  that  she  conceived. 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  215 

It  would  have  been  interesting  to 
have  seen  that  young  man,  the  mask 
removed,  frightening  the  senate  into 
calHng  Rome  Commodia,  and  then 
in  a  Hnen  robe  promenading  in  the  at- 
tributes of  a  priest  of  Anubis  through 
a  seraglio  of  six  hundred  girls  and 
mignons  who  prostituted  themselves 
as  he  passed.  There  was  a  spectacle, 
which  in  its  monstrosity  Nero  had 
not  surpassed.  But  Nero  was  vieux 
jeu.  Commodus  outdid  him,  first  in 
debauchery,  then  in  the  arena.  Nero 
had  died  while  in  training  to  kill  a 
lion;  Commodus  did  not  take  the 
trouble  to  train.  It  was  the  lions  that 
were  trained,  not  he.  A  skin  on  his 
shoulders,  a  club  in  his  hand,  he  de- 
scended naked  into  the  ring,  and  there 
felled  beasts  and  men.  Then,  ac- 
claimed as  Hercules,  he  returned  to 
the  pulvinar,  and  a  mignon  on  one 
side,  a  mistress  on  the  other,  ordered 


216  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

the  guard  to  massacre  the  spectators 
and  set  fire  to  Rome.  After  enter- 
ing the  arena  six  or  seven  hundred 
times,  and  there  vanquishing  men 
whose  eyes  had  been  put  out  and 
whose  legs  were  tied,  the  colossal 
statue  which  Nero  had  made  after  his 
own  image  was  altered;  to  the  top 
came  the  bust  of  Commodus,  to  the 
base  this  legend:  The  victor  of  ten 
thousand  gladiators^  Commodus-Her- 
cules^  Imperator. 

Meanwhile  conspirators  were  at 
work.  Like  Nero,  Commodus  could 
have  sought  in  vain  for  a  friend.  His 
life  was  attempted  again  and  again; 
he  escaped,  but  never  the  plotters; 
only  when  they  had  gone  there  were 
more.  He  knew  he  was  doomed. 
There  was  the  usual  comet ;  the  statue 
of  Hercules  had  perspired  visibly;  an 
owl  had  been  caught  above  his  bed- 
room, and  once  he  had   wiped  in  his 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  217 

hair  the  hand  which  he  had  plunged 
in  the  warm  wound  of  a  gladiator, 
dead  at  his  feet.  These  omens  could 
mean  but  one  thing.  None  the  less,  if 
he  were  doomed,  so  were  others. 
One  day  one  of  those  miserable  chil- 
dren that  the  emperors  kept  about 
them  found  a  tablet.  It  was  as  good  as 
anything  else  to  play  with;  and,  as 
the  child  tossed  it  through  the  hall, 
the  one  woman  that  had  loved  Com- 
modus  caught  it  and  read  on  it  that 
she  and  all  the  household  were  to  die. 
Within  an  hour  Commodus  was  killed. 
There  is  a  page  in  Lampridus, 
which  he  quotes  as  coming  from  the 
lost  chronicles  of  Marius  Maximus, 
and  which  contains  the  joy  of  the 
senate  at  the  news.  It  is  too  long  for 
transcription,  but  as  a  bit  of  realism 
it  is  unique.  There  is  a  shiver  in 
every  line.  You  hear  the  voices  of 
hundreds,  drunk   with  fury,   frenzied 


218  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

with  delight;  the  fierce  welcome  that 
greeted  Pertinax — a  slave's  grandson, 
who  was  emperor,  for  a  minute — the 
joy  of  hate  assuaged. 

The  delight  of  the  senate  was  not 
shared  by  the  pretorians.  Pertinax 
was  promptly  massacred;  the  throne 
was  put  up  at  auction;  there  were  two 
or  three  emperors  at  once,  and  pres- 
ently the  purple  was  seized  by  Septi- 
mus Severus,  a  rigid,  white-haired 
disciplinarian,  who  in  his  admiration 
for  Marcus  Aurelius,  founded  that 
second  dynasty  of  the  Antonins  with 
which  antiquity  may  be  said  to  end. 

When  he  had  gone,  his  elder  son, 
Bastian,  renamed  Aurelius  Antonin, 
and  because  of  a  cloak  he  had  in- 
vented nicknamed  Caracalla,  bounded 
like  a  panther  on  the  throne.  In 
a  moment  he  was  gnawing  at  his 
brother's  throat,  and  immediately 
there   occurred   a   massacre   such   as 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  219 

Rome  had  never  seen.  Xiphilin  says 
the  nights  were  not  long  enough  to 
kill  all  of  the  condemned.  Twenty 
thousand  people  were  slaughtered  in 
twenty  hours.  The  streets  were 
emptied,  the  theatres  closed. 

The  blood  that  ran  then  must  have 
been  in  rillets  too  thin  to  slake  Cara- 
calla's  thirst,  for  simultaneously  al- 
most, he  was  in  Gaul,  in  Dacia — 
wherever  there  was  prey.  African  by 
his  father,  Syrian  on  his  mother's 
side,  Caracalla  was  not  a  panther 
merely;  he  was  a  herd  of  them.  He 
had  the  cruelty,  the  treachery  and 
guile  of  a  wilderness  of  tiger-cats. 
No  man,  said  a  thinker,  is  wholly 
base.  Caracalla  was.  He  had  not  a 
taste;  not  a  vice,  even,  which  was  not 
washed  and  rewashed  in  blood.  In  a 
moment  of  excitement  Commodus  set 
his  guards  on  the  spectators  in  the 
amphitheatre;  the  damage  was  slight, 


220  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

for  the  Colosseum  was  so  constructed 
that  in  two  minutes  the  eighty  or  ninety 
thousand  people  which  it  held  could 
escape.  Caracalla  had  the  exits  closed. 
Those  who  escaped  were  naked;  to 
bribe  the  guards  they  were  forced  to 
strip  themselves  to  the  skin.  In  the  cir- 
cus a  vestal  caught  his  eye.  He  tried 
to  violate  her,  and  failing  impotently, 
had  her  buried  alive.  "Caracalla 
knows  that  I  am  a  virgin,  and  knows 
why,"  the  girl  cried  as  the  earth 
swallowed  her,  but  there  was  no  one 
there  to  aid. 

Such  things  show  the  trend  of  a 
temperament,  though  not,  perhaps,  its 
force.  Presently  the  latter  was  dis- 
played. Foryears  those  arch-enemies 
of  Rome,  the  unconquerable  Parthians, 
had  been  quiet;  bound,  too,  by  treaties 
which  held  Rome's  honor.  Not  Cara- 
calla's,  however;  he  had  none.  An 
embassy  went  out  to  Artobane,  the 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  221 

king.  Caracalla  wished  a  bride,  and 
what  fairer  one  could  he  have  than  the 
child  of  the  Parthian  monarch  ?  Then, 
too,  the  embassy  was  charged  to  ex- 
plain,the  marriage  of  Rome  and  Par- 
thia  would  be  the  union  of  the  Orient 
and  the  Occident,  peace  by  land  and 
sea.  Artobane  hesitated,  and  with 
cause;  but  Caracalla  wooed  so  ardently 
that  finally  the  king  said  yes. 

The  news  went  abroad.  The  Par- 
thians,  delighted,  prepared  to  receive 
the  emperor.  When  Caracalla  crossed 
the  Tigris,  the  highroad  that  led  to  the 
capital  was  strewn  with  sacrifices, 
with  altars  covered  with  flowers,  with 
welcomings  of  every  kind.  Caracalla 
was  visibly  pleased.  Beyond  the  gates 
of  the  capital,  there  was  the  king;  he 
had  adv-anced  to  greet  his  son-m-law, 
and  that  the  greeting  might  be  effec- 
tive, he  had  assembled  his  nobles  and 
his  troops.     The   latter  were  armed 


222  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

with  cymbals,  with  hautbois,  and  with 
flutes;  and  as  Caracalla  and  his  army 
approached,  there  was  music,  dancing 
and  song;  there  were  Hbations  too, and 
as  the  day  was  practically  the  wedding 
of  East  and  West,  there  was  not  a 
weapon  to  be  seen — gala  robes  merely, 
brilliant  and  long.  Caracalla  saluted 
the  king,  gave  an  order  to  an  adjutant, 
and  on  the  smiling  defenceless  Par- 
thians  the  Roman  eagles  pounced. 
Those  who  were  not  killed  were  made 
prisoners  of  war.  The  next  day  Cara- 
calla withdrew,  charged  with  booty, 
firing  cities  as  he  went. 

A  little  before,  rumor  reached  him 
that  a  group  of  the  citizens  of  Alex- 
andria had  referred  to  him  as  a  fratri- 
cide. After  the  adventure  in  Parthia 
he  bethought  him  of  the  city  which 
Alexander  had  founded,  and  of  the 
temple  of  Serapis  that  was  there.  He 
wished    to    honor  both,  he    declared, 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  223 

and  presently  he  was  at  the  gates. 
The  people  were  enchanted;  the  ave- 
nues were  strewn  with  flowers,  lined 
with  musicians.  There  were  illumina- 
tions, festivals,  sacrifices,  torrents  of 
perfumes,  and  through  it  all  Caracalla 
passed,  a  legion  at  his  heels.  To  see 
him,  to  participate  in  the  succession  of 
prodigalities,  the  surrounding  country 
flocked  there  too.  In  recognition  of 
the  courtesy  with  which  he  was  re- 
ceived, Caracalla  gave  a  banquet  to 
the  magnates  and  the  clergy.  Before 
his  guests  could  leave  him  they  were 
killed.  Through  the  streets  the  legion 
was  at  work.  Alexandria  was  turned 
into  a  cemetery.  Herodian  states  that 
the  carnage  was  so  great  that  the  Nile 
was  red  to  its  mouth. 

In  Rome  at  that  time  was  a  pre- 
fect, Macrin  by  name,  who  had 
dreamed  the  purple  would  be  his.  He 
was  a  swarthy  liar,  and   his  promises 


224  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

were  such  that  the  pretorians  were 
wilHng  that  the  dream  should  come 
true.  Emissaries  were  dispatched,  and 
Caracalla  was  stabbed.  In  his  lug- 
gage poison  was  found  to  the  value  of 
five  million  five  hundred  thousand 
drachmae.  What  fresh  turpitude  he 
was  devising  no  one  knew,  and  the 
discovery  might  serve  as  an  epitaph, 
were  it  not  that  by  his  legions  he  was 
adored.  No  one  had  abandoned  to 
the  army  such  booty  as  he. 

Meanwhile,  in  a  chapel  at  Emissa,  a 
boy  was  dancing  indolently  to  the  kiss 
of  flutes.  A  handful  of  Caracalla's 
soldiers  passed  that  way,  and  thought 
him  Bacchus.  In  his  face  was  the  en- 
igmatic beauty  of  gods  and  girls — the 
charm  of  the  dissolute  and  the  way- 
ward heightened  by  the  divine.  On 
his  head  was  a  diadem ;  his  frail  tunic 
was  of  purple  and  gold,  but  the 
sleeves,  after  the  Phoenician  fashion, 


/  MPERIAL  P  URPLE.  225 

were  wide,  and  he  was  shod  with  a 
thin  white  leather  that  reached  to  the 
thighs.  He  was  fourteen,  and  priest 
of  the  Sun.  The  chapel  was  roomy 
and  rich.  There  was  no  statue — a 
black  phallus  merely,  which  had  fallen 
from  above,  and  on  which,  if  you 
looked  closely,  you  could  see  the  image 
of  Elagabal,  the  Sun. 

The  rumor  of  his  beauty  brought 
other  soldiers  that  way,  and  the  lad, 
feeling  that  Rome  was  there,  ceased 
to  dance,  strolling  through  pauses  of 
the  worship,  a  troop  of  galli  at  his 
heels,  surveying  the  intruders  with 
querulous,  feminine  eyes. 

Presently  a  whisper  filtered  that  the 
lad  was  Caracalla's  son.  There  were 
centurions  there  that  remembered 
Semiamire,  the  lad's  mother,  very 
well;  they  had  often  seen  her,  a  superb 
creature  with  scorching  eyes,  before 
whom  fire  had  been  carried  as  though 
16 


226  IMPERIAL   PURPLE. 

she  were  empress.  It  was  she  who 
had  put  it  beyond  Caracalla's  power  to 
violate  that  vestal  when  he  tried.  She 
was  his  cousin;  her  life  had  been 
passed  at  court;  it  was  Macrin  who 
had  exiled  her.  And  with  the  whis- 
per filtered  another — that  she  was 
rich;  that  she  had  lumps  of  gold, 
which  she  would  give  gladly  to 
whomso  aided  in  placing  her  Antonin 
on  the  throne.  There  were  gossips 
who  said  ill-natured  things  of  this 
lady ;  who  insinuated  that  she  had  had 
so  many  lovers  that  she  herself  could 
not  tell  who  was  the  father  of  her 
child;  but  the  lumps  of  gold  had  a 
language  of  theii  own.  The  disbanded 
army  espoused  the  young  priest's 
cause';  there  was  a  skirmish,  Macrin 
was  killed,  and  Heliogabalus  was  em- 
peror of  Rome. 

"  I   would  never  have  written  the 
life   of   this    Antonin    Impurissimus," 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  227 

said  Lampridus,  "  were  it  not  that  he 
had  predecessors."  Even  in  Latin  the 
task  was  difficult.  In  English  it  is  im- 
possible. There  are  subjects  that  per- 
mit of  a  hint,  particularly  if  it  be 
masked  to  the  teeth,  but  there  are 
others  that  no  art  can  drape.  "  The 
inexpressible  does  not  exist,"  Gautier 
remarked,  when  he  finished  a  notori- 
ous romance,  nor  does  it;  but  even 
his  pen  would  have  balked  had  he 
tried  it  on  Heliogabalus.  There  is 
another  difficulty.  The  historian 
should  possess  an  unprejudiced  indif- 
ference; unless  he  happens  to  address 
a  particular  school,  any  comment  is 
an  impertinence.  It  is  not  for  the 
undertaker  to  judge  the  corpse;  he 
may  bury  it,  or  enbalm  it,  if  b}^  chance 
he  know  how,  but  who  has  ever  cared 
to  learn  his  opinion  on  the  merits  and 
demerits  of  the  defunct?  It  is  for 
this   reason,    no  doubt,  that  volumes 


228  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

which  treat  of  the  past  are  handsomely 
bound  and  never  read.  The  com- 
mentator is  not  only  impertinent,  he 
is  a  bore. 

In  his  work  on  the  Caesars,  Sueto- 
nius drew  breath  but  once — he  called 
Nero  a  monster.  Subsequently  he 
must  have  regretted  having  done  so, 
not  because  Nero  was  not  a  monster, 
but  because  it  was  sufficient  to  dis- 
play the  beast  without  adding  a  de- 
scriptive placard.  In  that  was  Sueto- 
nius' advantage;  he  could  describe. 
In  the  present  era  a  writer  may  not. 
There  are  details,  however  historical, 
into  which  he  must  decline  to  enter. 
Even  to  blase  initiates  of  old  world 
libraries  he  may  not  suggest.  Helio- 
gabalus  presents  that  difficulty.  It 
is  not  merely  that  he  was  depraved, 
for  all  of  that  lot  were;  it  was  that  he 
made  depravity  a  pursuit;  and,  the 
purple   favoring,    carried  it  not  only 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  229 

beyond  the  limits  of  the  imaginable, 
but  beyond  the  limits  of  the  real.  At 
the  feet  of  that  painted  boy,  Elephantis 
and  Parrhasius  could  have  sat  and 
learned  a  lesson.  Apart  from  that 
phase  of  his  sovereignty,  he  was  a 
little  Sardanapalus,  an  Asiatic  mig- 
non,  who  found  himself  great. 

It  would  have  been  curious  to  have 
seen  him  in  that  wonderful  palace, 
clothed  like  a  Persian  queen,  insisting 
that  he  should  be  addressed  as  Impera- 
trix,  and  quite  living  up  to  the  title. 
It  would  not  only  be  interesting,  it 
would  give  one  an  insight  into  just 
how  much  the  Romans  could  stand. 
It  would  have  been  curious,  also,  to 
have  assisted  at  that  superb  and  poetic 
ceremonial,  in  which,  having  got 
Tanit  from  Carthage  as  consort  for 
Elagabal,  he  presided,  girt  with  the 
pomp  of  church  and  state,  over  the 
nuptials    of    the     Sun    and     Moon. 


230  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

He  had  read  Suetonius,  and  not  an 
eccentricity  of  the  Caesars  escaped 
him.  He  would  not  hunt  flies  by  the 
hour,  as  Domitian  had  done,  for  that 
would  be  mere  imitation;  but  he  could 
collect  cobwebs,  and  he  did,  b}^  the 
ton.  Caligula  and  Vitellius  had  been 
famous  as  hosts,  but  the  feasts  that 
Heliogabalus  gave  outranked  them 
for  sheer  splendor.  From  panels  in 
the  ceiling  such  masses  of  flowers  fell 
that  guests  were  smothered  before 
they  could  escape.  Those  that  sur- 
vived had  set  before  them  glass  game 
and  sweets  of  crystal.  The  menu  was 
embroidered  on  the  table  cloth — not 
the  mere  list  of  dishes,  but  pictures 
drawn  with  the  needle  of  the  dishes 
them.selves.  And  presently,  after  the 
little  jest  in  glass  had  been  enjoyed, 
you  were  served  with  camel's  heels; 
combs  torn  from  living  cocks;  plat- 
ters  of  nightingale   tongues;  ostrich 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  231 

brains,  prepared  with  that  garum 
sauce  which  the  Sybarites  invented, 
and  of  which  the  secret  is  lost;  there- 
with were  peas  and  grains  of  gold; 
beans  and  amber;  quail,  peppered  with 
pearl  dust;  lentils  and  rubies;  spiders 
in  jelly;  lion's  dung,  served  in  pastry. 
The  o-uests  that  wine  overcame  were 
carried  to  bed-rooms.  When  they 
awoke,  there  staring  at  them  were 
tigers  and  leopards — tame,  of  course; 
but  some  of  the  guests  were  stupid 
enough  not  to  know  it,  and  died  of 
fright. 

All  this  was  of  a  nature  to  amuse  a 
lad  who  had  made  the  phallus  the 
chief  object  of  worship;  who  had 
banished  Jupiter,  dismissed  Isis;  who, 
over  paths  that  were  strewn  with 
lilies,  had  himself,  in  the  attributes  of 
Bacchus,  drawn  by  tigers ;  by  lions  as 
Mother  of  the  Gods;  again,  by  naked 
women,  as  Heliogabalus  on  his  way 


232  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

to  wed  a  vestal,  and  procure  for  the 
empire  a  child  that  should  be  wholly 
divine. 

It  amused  Rome,  too,  and  his  pro- 
digalities in  the  circus  were  such 
that  Lampridus  admits  that  the  peo- 
ple were  glad  he  was  emperor. 
Neither  Caligula  nor  Nero  had 
been  as  lavish,  and  neither  Caligula 
nor  Nero  as  cruel.  The  atrocities  he 
committed,  if  less  vast  than  those  of 
Caracalla's,  were  more  acute.  Domit- 
ian  even  was  surpassed  in  the  tortures 
invented  by  a  boy,  so  dainty  that  he 
never  used  the  same  garments,  the 
same  shoes,  the  same  jewels,  the  same 
woman  twice. 

In  spite  of  this,  or  perhaps  pre- 
cisely on  that  account,  the  usual  con- 
pirators  were  at  work,  and  one  day 
this  little  painted  girl,  who  had  pre- 
pared several  devices  for  a  unique 
and     splendid      suicide,     was     taken 


IMPERIAL  PURPLE.  233 

unawares  and  tossed    in    the  latrinae. 

In  him  the  glow  of  the  purple  reached 
its  apogee,  Rome  had  been  watching 
a  crescendo  that  had  mounted  with  the 
years.  Its  culmination  was  in  that 
hermaphrodite.  But  the  tension  had 
been  too  great — something  snapped; 
there  was  nothing  left — a  procession 
of  colorless  bandits  merely,  Thracians, 
Gauls,  Pannonians,  Dalmatians,  Goths, 
women  even,  with  Attila  for  a  climax 
and  the  refurbishing  of  the  world. 

Rome  was  still  mistress,  but  she  was 
growing  very  old.  She  had  conquered 
step  by  step.  When  one  nation  had 
fallen,  she  garotted  another.  To  van- 
quish her,  the  earth  had  to  produce 
not  only  new  races,  but  new  creeds. 
The  parturitions,  as  we  know,  were 
successful.  Already  the  blue,  victo- 
rious eyes  of  Vandal  and  of  Goth  were 
peering  down  at  Rome;  already  they 
had  whispered  together,  and  over  the 


234  IMPERIAL  PURPLE. 

hydromel  had  drunk  to  her  fall.  The 
earth's  new  children  fell  upon  her,  not 
one  by  one,  but  all  at  once,  and  pres- 
ently the  colossus  tottered,  startling 
the  universe  with  the  uproar  of  her 
agony;  calling  to  gods  that  had  va- 
cated the  skies;  calling  to  Jupiter;  call- 
ing to  Isis;  calling  in  vain.  Where 
the  thunderbolt  had  gleamed,  a  cruci- 
fix stood.  On  the  shoulders  of  a  pre- 
late was  the  purple  that  had  dazzled 
the  world. 

Asnelles,  August;  Paris,  October,  1891. 


JUL    3  1969 


'         JAY        ^ 

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